Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/108

 Leaves from an English Solicitor's Note-Book housekeeper, who acted as nurse, and sat up at night with his father, had gone out for a walk before taking her place in the sick room for the night. I left George Carter in one of the sitting-rooms downstairs, and proceeded to the colonel's bedroom, accom panied by my visitor of the morning, who introduced me to the colonel, and I then desired that he and I should be left alone, a request which was (somewhat ungraciously as I thought) complied with. The sick man lay very still in the bed, and spoke in very low tones, and said he feared he had received his summons to the next world, and was anxious to make a will in favor of his son-in-law, who, by his daughter's death might (he thought) be left unprovided for if he, the sick man, died with out a will. He then told me the same story that my visitor of the morning had previously told me; of the Scotch settled estate that needed no mention in the will, but would form an ample provision for his only son, and that he wished to leave a legacy of ¿7000, which (he said), represented about one-half of the value of his personal estate, to his son-in-law, Alexander Caryl, and the residue, including the house and furniture to his son; and he said he wished his son-inlaw Caryl to be the sole executor. I felt it only right to point out to the testator that it was casting a slur on his only son, not to appoint him one of the executors, and after some little grumbling he fell in with my view, and I then proceeded further to point out that it would be prudent to settle the legacy given to the son-in-law, so as to give him a life interest only in the capital, and provide for the corpus passing over to his only son in the event of Caryl's marrying again, as it seemed to me rather hard upon the only son, that his father's money might ¡n the course of a short time go to endow the second wife of a son-in-law. At this the old man got somewhat angry, and .told me rather curtly to carry out his instructions, and not to dictate to him what his duty was

as between his son, and his son-in-law. To soften the old man's wrath, and in fear of any outburst of anger bringing on fatal con sequences, I decided not to argue the point any further but to draw the will as instructed, but I extracted a promise from the sick man that he would reconsider my suggestion, and send for me if he thought it prudent on sec ond thoughts to make any alteration. After this I summoned up the son to take his place at the sick man's bedside whilst I proceeded to put the will into proper shape, and get it copied by George Carter. This did not take long; and shortly after ten o'clock Carter and I went up to the sick man's room, read the will over to him, with which he expressed himself satisfied. I then called his son into the room, the sick man was raised up in his bed, and with some dif ficulty we placed him in such a posture that he could sign the will. He took a long time and very great care about the signature; Carter and I added our names as witnesses; and at the sick man's request I placed the will, folded in a sealed envelope, under his pillow. Before leaving him, I added a few earnest words, which no one else could hear, urging him to reconsider the advisability of settling his son-in-law's legacy, so that, in case of his marrying a second time, his own son and his family, if any, should have the reversion of the legacy; and I again prom ised to hold myself ready to come to him again at any moment he might summon me to make this or any other alteration he might desire. Before I left the house his son paid me a very liberal fee for the work I had done, thanking me for my promptness and expe dition in carrying out his father's wishes. I pause here to ask any fair-minded reader of this story whether he can find any fault or flaw in my conduct throughout this mat ter. Yet the next few weeks convinced me, to my own confusion, that I had been made an instrument (though an unconscious, and certainly an innocent one) in the concoc