The American Claimant Read online

  CHAPTER I.

  It is a matchless morning in rural England. On a fair hill we see amajestic pile, the ivied walls and towers of Cholmondeley Castle, hugerelic and witness of the baronial grandeurs of the Middle Ages. This isone of the seats of the Earl of Rossmore, K. G. G. C. B. K. C. M. G.,etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., who possesses twenty-two thousand acresof English land, owns a parish in London with two thousand houses on itslease-roll, and struggles comfortably along on an income of two hundredthousand pounds a year. The father and founder of this proud old linewas William the Conqueror his very self; the mother of it was notinventoried in history by name, she being merely a random episode andinconsequential, like the tanner's daughter of Falaise.

  In a breakfast room of the castle on this breezy fine morning there aretwo persons and the cooling remains of a deserted meal. One of thesepersons is the old lord, tall, erect, square-shouldered, white-haired,stern-browed, a man who shows character in every feature, attitude,and movement, and carries his seventy years as easily as most men carryfifty. The other person is his only son and heir, a dreamy-eyed youngfellow, who looks about twenty-six but is nearer thirty. Candor,kindliness, honesty, sincerity, simplicity, modesty--it is easy to seethat these are cardinal traits of his character; and so when you haveclothed him in the formidable components of his name, you somehowseem to be contemplating a lamb in armor: his name and style beingthe Honourable Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjoribanks SellersViscount-Berkeley, of Cholmondeley Castle, Warwickshire. (PronouncedK'koobry Thlanover Marshbanks Sellers Vycount Barkly, of Chumly Castle,Warrikshr.) He is standing by a great window, in an attitude suggestiveof respectful attention to what his father is saying and equallyrespectful dissent from the positions and arguments offered. The fatherwalks the floor as he talks, and his talk shows that his temper is awayup toward summer heat.

  "Soft-spirited as you are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when youhave once made up your mind to do a thing which your ideas of honor andjustice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time being,)wasted upon you--yes, and ridicule; persuasion, supplication, andcommand as well. To my mind--"

  "Father, if you will look at it without prejudice, without passion, youmust concede that I am not doing a rash thing, a thoughtless, wilfulthing, with nothing substantial behind it to justify it. I did notcreate the American claimant to the earldom of Rossmore; I did not huntfor him, did not find him, did not obtrude him upon your notice. Hefound himself, he injected himself into our lives--"

  "And has made mine a purgatory for ten years with his tiresome letters,his wordy reasonings, his acres of tedious evidence,--"

  "Which you would never read, would never consent to read. Yet in commonfairness he was entitled to a hearing. That hearing would either provehe was the rightful earl--in which case our course would be plain--orit would prove that he wasn't--in which case our course would be equallyplain. I have read his evidences, my lord. I have conned them well,studied them patiently and thoroughly. The chain seems to be complete,no important link wanting. I believe he is the rightful earl."

  "And I a usurper--a--nameless pauper, a tramp! Consider what you aresaying, sir."

  "Father, if he is the rightful earl, would you, could you--that factbeing established--consent to keep his titles and his properties fromhim a day, an hour, a minute?"

  "You are talking nonsense--nonsense--lurid idiocy! Now, listen to me. Iwill make a confession--if you wish to call it by that name. I did notread those evidences because I had no occasion to--I was made familiarwith them in the time of this claimant's father and of my own fatherforty years ago. This fellow's predecessors have kept mine more or lessfamiliar with them for close upon a hundred and fifty years. The truthis, the rightful heir did go to America, with the Fairfax heir or aboutthe same time--but disappeared--somewhere in the wilds of Virginia, gotmarried, and began to breed savages for the Claimant market; wrote noletters home; was supposed to be dead; his younger brother softly tookpossession; presently the American did die, and straightway his eldestproduct put in his claim--by letter--letter still in existence--anddied before the uncle in-possession found time--or maybeinclination--to--answer. The infant son of that eldest productgrew up--long interval, you see--and he took to writing letters andfurnishing evidences. Well, successor after successor has done the same,down to the present idiot. It was a succession of paupers; not one ofthem was ever able to pay his passage to England or institute suit. TheFairfaxes kept their lordship alive, and so they have never lost it tothis day, although they live in Maryland; their friend lost his by hisown neglect. You perceive now, that the facts in this case bring us toprecisely this result: morally the American tramp is rightful earl ofRossmore; legally he has no more right than his dog. There now--are yousatisfied?"

  There was a pause, then the son glanced at the crest carved in the greatoaken mantel and said, with a regretful note in his voice:

  "Since the introduction of heraldic symbols,--the motto of this househas been 'Suum cuique'--to every man his own. By your own intrepidlyfrank confession, my lord, it is become a sarcasm: If Simon Lathers--"

  "Keep that exasperating name to yourself! For ten years it has pesteredmy eye--and tortured my ear; till at last my very footfalls timethemselves to the brain-racking rhythm of Simon Lathers!--Simon Lathers!--Simon Lathers! And now, to make its presence in my soul eternal,immortal, imperishable, you have resolved to--to--what is it you haveresolved to do?"

  "To go to Simon Lathers, in America, and change places with him."

  "What? Deliver the reversion of the earldom into his hands?"

  "That is my purpose."

  "Make this tremendous surrender without even trying the fantastic casein the Lords?"

  "Ye--s--" with hesitation and some embarrassment.

  "By all that is amazing, I believe you are insane, my son. See here--have you been training with that ass again--that radical, if youprefer the term, though the words are synonymous--Lord Tanzy, ofTollmache?"

  The son did not reply, and the old lord continued:

  "Yes, you confess. That puppy, that shame to his birth and caste, whoholds all hereditary lordships and privilege to be usurpation, allnobility a tinsel sham, all aristocratic institutions a fraud, allinequalities in rank a legalized crime and an infamy, and no breadhonest bread that a man doesn't earn by his own work--work, pah!"--andthe old patrician brushed imaginary labor-dirt from his white hands."You have come to hold just those opinions yourself, I suppose,"--he addedwith a sneer.

  A faint flush in the younger man's cheek told that the shot had hit andhurt; but he answered with dignity:

  "I have. I say it without shame--I feel none. And now my reason forresolving to renounce my heirship without resistance is explained. Iwish to retire from what to me is a false existence, a false position,and begin my life over again--begin it right--begin it on the level ofmere manhood, unassisted by factitious aids, and succeed or fail by puremerit or the want of it. I will go to America, where all men are equaland all have an equal chance; I will live or die, sink or swim, win orlose as just a man--that alone, and not a single helping gaud or fictionback of it."

  "Hear, hear!" The two men looked each other steadily in the eye amoment or two, then the elder one added, musingly, "Ab-so-lutelycra-zy--ab-solutely!" After another silence, he said, as one who, longtroubled by clouds, detects a ray of sunshine, "Well, there will be onesatisfaction--Simon Lathers will come here to enter into his own, and Iwill drown him in the horsepond. The poor devil--always so humble inhis letters, so pitiful, so deferential; so steeped in reverence for ourgreat line and lofty-station; so anxious to placate us, so prayerfulfor recognition as a relative, a bearer in his veins of our sacredblood--and withal so poor, so needy, so threadbare and pauper-shod asto raiment, so despised, so laughed at for his silly claimantship by thelewd American scum around him--ah, the vulgar, crawling, insufferabletramp! To read one of his cringing, nauseating letters--well?"

  This to a splendid flunkey, all in inflamed plush and butt
ons andknee-breeches as to his trunk, and a glinting white frost-work ofground-glass paste as to his head, who stood with his heels together andthe upper half of him bent forward, a salver in his hands:

  "The letters, my lord."

  My lord took them, and the servant disappeared.

  "Among the rest, an American letter. From the tramp, of course. Jove,but here's a change! No brown paper envelope this time, filched froma shop, and carrying the shop's advertisement in the corner. Oh, no,a proper enough envelope--with a most ostentatiously broad mourningborder--for his cat, perhaps, since he was a bachelor--and fastened withred wax--a batch of it as big as a half-crown--and--and--our crest fora seal!--motto and all. And the ignorant, sprawling hand is gone; hesports a secretary, evidently--a secretary with a most confident swingand flourish to his pen. Oh indeed, our fortunes are improving overthere--our meek tramp has undergone a metamorphosis."

  "Read it, my lord, please."

  "Yes, this time I will. For the sake of the cat:"