Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/386

376[March 20, 1869] different consciousness, the pen guided, and the faltering signature. Think of the "low comedian" will-maker, who chuckles over services invited all his life, over the hopes held out, the significant word dropped, and who revels in the picture of the day when the will is read which gives all to one whom he has never seen, and disappoints the parasites. What would he not give to be present at that most exquisite of scenes? By wills and will-making hangs a cloud of the most intensely dramatic elements, and it is no wonder that so great a master of the human comedy as Balzac, should have played again and again on these disagreeable but seducing chords, and have loved to create misers, and hungry and greedy heirs. The philosophy and interest of the study is founded on the most absorbing and genuine situations; for the will-maker is put to a curious test, and must face his own meaner passions and interests. He must make up his mind to deal with the matter, as if he himself was out of the question. He must deal with himself as though he were dead, though he does not like to do so. So with the attitude of others, more or less dependent, towards the will-maker. A penetrating cynic will laugh to see how the best and most virtuous, once this magnet is held towards them, find themselves unconsciously playing a new part.

We may think, also, what a real touchstone this will-making becomes as a test for true righteousness. The complacently just, deceiving themselves, cannot there deceive others. The thin veil is torn off from their motives; an act of "strict justice" is seen at once to be the gratification of intolerance, or spite, or revenge. Proctors declare that thousands of wills are being destroyed and have been destroyed. The decent, virtuous gentleman who would cut off his right hand, as he thinks, sooner than commit an offence akin to those for which lower creatures are placed in the dock, sometimes mistakes the fear of detection and disgrace, the want of suitable temptation, for inflexible principle; and the lucky and respectable heir, who has come into possession through no will being found, often has discovered among the papers, or between the leaves of a book, the fatal stray sheet which will deprive him of all. It is certain that hundreds have succumbed to this terrible test. The most perfect instance of the victory of principle is the Irish one, told by Sir Bernard Burke, and which deserved a crown of virtue indeed, and would have had public recognition from any other state than our own.

A Dublin barrister named Carroll was brought up in the confidence that he was to inherit an estate of a relative, which he managed, and which was indeed his only prospect of support. The relative died, and he found himself in possession. Some dispute arising with a tenant about a lease, he came to Dublin to search, and after much trouble found it, with a whole bundle of others, in an old trunk at the top of the stairs. Going over them at night, a paper dropped out, which proved to be a will, leaving the whole away to an illegitimate daughter, whom the Carrolls were at that moment supporting. The luckless barrister did not hesitate. He was alone. It was a tiny scrap. There was a candle beside him. His first act was to consult a barrister as to whether it was a legally drawn will; he owed that, at least, to his family. He was told it was. He took the mail, went down to his family, and placed the paper in the hands of the girl who had become entitled. For him it was literally beggary. He soon after died, and with difficulty some friends procured for his wife the matronship of a jail. It is impossible to give enough credit to this noble act, which exhibited an act of religion in its purest shape, precipitating every particle of motive.

One of the most curious features in this "Revenge by Will," is the many times it has deceived the ends of the will-makers. A very remarkable instance occurred not many years ago in a family known to the writer. It has an air of compensation at the end, quite suitable to a drama.

A gentleman of large fortune was married to a lady of some attractions. For a time they lived very happily; but soon a disagreeable and ill-conditioned temper began to be exhibited in the husband. This later turned to a positive dislike, quite undeserved on the wife's side, and which deepened into a malignant hatred. Her forbearance and temper carried on matters with tolerable smoothness for some years, when the husband was seized with an illness that proved fatal, and he went out of the world in the old ill-conditioned way that he had lived. Her friends were congratulating themselves on this release, and as she had but a slender settlement, it was known that all his large fortune must come to her. When his will, however, was opened, it was found that everything was left away from her—artful and ingenious devices had been used to deprive her of the smallest article of property—and, with an almost diabolical malignity, a last blow was given: "And I make this disposition, for a reason that she herself best knows." This scandalous insinuation only recoiled on the head of the testator; for her friends knew her character too well, and the charitable set down this ungoverned hatred to something akin to insanity. The lady accepted her lot with great sweetness and resignation. Not long after, a relative, who was an eminent barrister, happened to be talking to one of the witnesses to the will in the street. Suddenly a gentleman passed them.

"There's a coincidence," said the eminent barrister. "There's your fellow-witness, A.B."

"Oh, was he?" said the other carelessly. "I didn't know."

"What!" exclaimed the barrister.

A question or two, and it came out that the two witnesses had signed at different times.

We may conceive the delight with which the barrister—a sympathising friend—received this news. The will collapsed of itself, like a crazy house, without even a legal proceeding; and the lady, like a heroine, was triumphantly restored to her rights and honours. One might almost wish that her baffled lord had been