Part 15 (1/2)

The month for which Burton had borrowed the two hundred and fifty pounds pa.s.sed rapidly--as months always do to borrowers--and expedient after expedient for raising the money was tried in vain. This money must be repaid, Kirkshaw had emphatically told him, on the day stipulated. Burton applied to the bank at Leeds, with which he usually did business, to discount an acceptance, guaranteed by one or two persons whose names he mentioned. The answer was the usual civil refusal to accept the proffered security for repayment--”the bank was just then full of discounts.”

Burton ventured, as a last resource, to call on Hornby with a request that, as the rapid advance in the market-value of land consequent on the high war-prices obtained for its produce, had greatly increased the worth of Grange Farm, he would add the required sum to the already-existing mortgage. He was met by a prompt refusal. Mr. Hornby intended to foreclose as speedily as possible the mortgages he already held, and invest his capital in more profitable securities. ”Well, then--would he lend the amount at any interest he chose?”

”The usury laws,” replied Hornby, with his usual saturnine sneer, ”would prevent my acceptance of your obliging offer, even if I had the present means, which I have not. My spare cash happens just now to be temporarily locked up.”

Burton, half-crazed with anxiety, went the following day to the Leeds bank with the proffer of a fresh name agreed to be lent him by its owner. Useless! ”They did not know the party.” The applicant mused a few moments, and then said, ”Would you discount the note of Mr. James Hornby of Pool?”

”Certainly; with a great deal of pleasure.” Burton hurried away; had his horse instantly saddled, and gallopped off to Pool. Hornby was at home.

”You hinted the other day,” said Burton, ”that if you had not been short of present means you might have obliged me with the loan I required”

”Did I?”

”At least I so understood you. I am of course not ignorant, Mr. Hornby, that there is no good blood between us two; but I also know that you are fond of money, and that you are fully aware that I am quite safe for a few hundred pounds. I am come, therefore, to offer you ten pounds _bonus_ for your acceptance at one month for two hundred and fifty pounds.”

”What?” exclaimed Hornby with strange vehemence. ”What”

Burton repeated his offer, and Hornby turned away towards the window without speaking.

When he again faced Burton, his countenance wore its usual color; but the expression of his eyes, the applicant afterwards remembered, was wild and exulting.

”Have you a bill stamp?”

”Yes.”

”Then draw the bill at once, and I will accept it.”

Burton did not require to be twice told. The bill was quickly drawn; Hornby took it to another table at the further end of the apartment, slowly wrote his name across it, folded, and returned it to Burton, who tendered the ten pounds he had offered, and a written acknowledgment that the bill had been drawn and accepted for his (Burton's) accommodation.

”I don't want your money, Henry Burton,” said Hornby, putting back the note and the memorandum. ”I am not afraid of losing by this transaction.

You do not know me yet.”

”A queer stick,” thought Burton, as he gained the street; ”but Old Nick is seldom so black as he's painted! He was a plaguy while, I thought, signing his name; but I wish I could sign mine to such good purpose.”

Burton laid the accepted bill, face downwards, on the bank counter, took a pen, indorsed, and pa.s.sed it to the managing clerk. The gray-headed man glanced sharply at the signature, and then at Burton, ”Why, surely this is not Mr. Hornby's signature? It does not at all resemble it!”

”Not his signature!” exclaimed Burton; ”what do you mean by that?”

”Reynolds, look here,” continued the clerk, addressing another of the bank _employes_. Reynolds looked, and his immediate glance of surprise and horror at Burton revealed the impression he had formed.

”Please to step this way, Mr. Burton, to a private apartment,” said the manager.

”No--no, I won't,” stammered the unfortunate man, over whose mind a dreadful suspicion had glanced with the suddenness of lightning. ”I will go back to Hornby;” and he made a desperate but vain effort to s.n.a.t.c.h the fatal instrument. Then, pale and staggering with a confused terror and bewilderment, he attempted to rush into the street. He was stopped, with the help of the bystanders, by one of the clerks, who had jumped over the counter for the purpose.

The messenger despatched by the bankers to Hornby returned with an answer that the alleged acceptance was a forgery. It was stated on the part of Mr. Hornby that Mr. Burton had indeed requested him to lend two hundred and fifty pounds, but he had refused. The frantic a.s.severations of poor Burton were of course disregarded, and he was conveyed to jail. An examination took place the next day before the magistrates, and the result was, that the prisoner was fully committed on the then capital charge for trial at the ensuing a.s.size.

It were useless, as painful, to dwell upon the consternation and agony which fell upon the dwellers at Grange Farm when the terrible news reached them. A confident belief in the perfect innocence of the prisoner, partic.i.p.ated by most persons who knew his character and that of Hornby, and that it would be triumphantly vindicated on the day of trial, which rapidly approached, alone enabled them to bear up against the blow, and to await with trembling hope the verdict of a jury.

It was at this crisis of the drama that I became an actor in it. I was retained for the defence by my long-known and esteemed friend Symonds, whose zeal for his client, stimulated by strong personal friends.h.i.+p, knew no bounds. The acceptance, he informed me, so little resembled Hornby's handwriting, that if Burton had unfolded the bill when given back to him by the villain, he could hardly have failed to suspect the nature of the diabolical snare set for his life.