It was a rough night. The winds seemed as if singing my uncle's requiem
about the mansion; and the bloodhounds howled without as if they knew
of the death of their old master. Iron John almost grudged me the
tallow candle to burn in my apartment and light up its dreariness; so
accustomed had he been to starveling economy. I could not sleep. The
recollection of my uncle's dying scene and the dreary sounds about the
house, affected my mind. These, however, were succeeded by plans for
the future, and I lay awake the greater part of the night, indulging
the poetical anticipation, how soon I would make these old walls ring
with cheerful life, and restore the hospitality of my mother's
ancestors.
My uncle's funeral was decent, but private, I knew there was nobody
That respected his memory; and I was determined that none should be
summoned to sneer over his funeral wines, and make merry at his grave.
He was buried in the church of the neighboring village, though it was
not the burying place of his race; but he had expressly enjoined that
he should not be buried with his family; he had quarrelled with the
most of them when living, and he carried his resentments even into the
grave.
I defrayed the expenses of the funeral out of my own purse, that I
might have done with the undertakers at once, and clear the ill-omened
birds from the premises. I invited the parson of the parish, and the
lawyer from the village to attend at the house the next morning and
hear the reading of the will. I treated them to an excellent breakfast,
a profusion that had not been seen at the house for many a year. As
soon as the breakfast things were removed, I summoned Iron John, the
woman, and the boy, for I was particular of having every one present
and proceeding regularly. The box was placed on the table. All was
silence. I broke the seal; raised the lid; and beheld - not the will,
but my accursed poem of Doubting Castle and Giant Despair!
Could any mortal have conceived that this old withered man; so
taciturn, and apparently lost to feeling, could have treasured up for
years the thoughtless pleasantry of a boy, to punish him with such
cruel ingenuity? I could now account for his dying smile, the only one
he had ever given me. He had been a grave man all his life; it was
strange that he should die in the enjoyment of a joke; and it was hard
that that joke should be at my expense.
The lawyer and the parson seemed at a loss to comprehend the matter.
"Here must be some mistake," said the lawyer, "there is no will here."
"Oh," said Iron John, creaking forth his rusty jaws, "if it is a will
you are looking for, I believe I can find one."
He retired with the same singular smile with which he had greeted me on
my arrival, and which I now apprehended boded me no good. In a little
while he returned with a will perfect at all points, properly signed
and sealed and witnessed; worded with horrible correctness; in which he
left large legacies to Iron John and his daughter, and the residue of
his fortune to the foxy-headed boy; who, to my utter astonishment, was
his son by this very woman; he having married her privately; and, as I
verily believe, for no other purpose than to have an heir, and so baulk
my father and his issue of the inheritance. There was one little
proviso, in which he mentioned that having discovered his nephew to
have a pretty turn for poetry, he presumed he had no occasion for
wealth; he recommended him, however, to the patronage of his heir; and
requested that he might have a garret, rent free, in Doubting Castle.
Mr. Buckthorne had paused at the death of his uncle, and the downfall
of his great expectations, which formed, as he said, an epoch in his
history; and it was not until some little time afterwards, and in a
very sober mood, that he resumed his particolored narrative.
After leaving the domains of my defunct uncle, said he, when the gate
Closed between me and what was once to have been mine, I felt thrust
out naked into the world, and completely abandoned to fortune. What was
to become of me? I had been brought up to nothing but expectations, and
they had all been disappointed. I had no relations to look to for
counsel or assistance. The world seemed all to have died away from me.
Wave after wave of relationship had ebbed off, and I was left a mere
hulk upon the strand. I am not apt to be greatly cast down, but at
this, time I felt sadly disheartened. I could not realize my situation,
nor form a conjecture how I was to get forward.
I was now to endeavor to make money. The idea was new and strange to
me. It was like being asked to discover the philosopher's stone. I had
never thought about money, other than to put my hand into my pocket and
find it, or if there were none there, to wait until a new supply came
from home. I had considered life as a mere space of time to be filled
up with enjoyments; but to have it portioned out into long hours and
days of toil, merely that I might gain bread to give me strength to
toil on; to labor but for the purpose of perpetuating a life of labor
was new and appalling to me.
