Volume Ii Part 26 (1/2)
”Not in the least,” replied Hazlehurst. ”You have read this volume often I suppose,” he added, turning to the sailor.
”Not I,” was the reply; ”I ain't given to reading in any shape; my s.h.i.+pmates have read that 'ere book oftener than I have.”
”Did you carry it with you in all your voyages?”
”No; I left it ash.o.r.e half the time.”
”How long have you had it in your possession?”
”Since I first went to sea.”
”Indeed! that is singular; I should have said, Mr. Clapp,”
exclaimed Harry, suddenly facing the lawyer, ”that only four years since, I read this very volume of the Spectator at Greatwood!”
If Hazlehurst expected Mr. Clapp to betray confusion, he was disappointed.
”You may have read some other volume,” was the cool reply; although Harry thought, or fancied, that he traced a muscular movement about the speaker's eyelids, as he uttered the words: ”That volume has been in the possession of Mr. Stanley since he first went to sea.”
”Is there no other copy of the Spectator at your country-place, Mrs. Stanley?” asked Mr. Reed.
”There is another edition, entire, in three volumes,” said Mrs.
Stanley.
”I had forgotten it” said Hazlehurst; ”but I am, nevertheless, convinced that it was this edition which I read, for I remember looking for it on an upper shelf, where it belonged.”
”It was probably another volume of the same edition; there must be some half-dozen, to judge by the size of this,” observed Mr.
Reed.
”There were eight volumes, but one has been missing for years,”
said Mrs. Stanley.
”It was this which I read, however,” said Harry; ”for I remember the portrait of Steele, in the frontispiece.”
”Will you swear to it?” asked Mr. Clapp, with a doubtful smile.
”When I do take an oath, it will not be lightly, sir,” replied Hazlehurst.
”It is pretty evident, that Mr. Hazlehurst will not be easily satisfied,” added Mr. Clapp, with an approach to a sneer. ”Shall we go on, Mr. Reed, or stop the examination?”
Mrs. Stanley professed herself anxious to ask other questions; and as she had showed more symptoms of yielding than the gentlemen, the sailor's counsel seemed to cherish hopes of bringing her over to their side. At her request, Mr. Wyllys then proceeded to ask some questions, which had been agreed upon before the meeting.
”What is your precise age, sir?”
”I shall be thirty-seven, the tenth of next August.”
”Where were you born?”
”At my father's country-place, in ----- county, Pennsylvania.”