CHAPTER XXXI GOOD NEWS FOR BAR

When George Brayton arrived in the great city that Tuesday morning, he went directly to the hotel designated by Ashbel Norton’s telegram, and neither one of them had the slightest suspicion that an earlier train had brought a more important passenger.

The Englishman had a good deal to tell Brayton, of course, but it was nothing compared to Dr. Manning’s talk with Bar Vernon, at an earlier hour, before he sent him down to the office of Judge Danvers.

Poor Bar!

If his brain had been busy during his journey, it was all in a whirl now, and the only real help he got was when good, sweet-faced Mrs. Manning put her arm around him and said, as if she could not help it:

“Oh, if they had but found you before your mother died!”

[Pg 370]That was just what Bar needed, for it brought the tears to his eyes, and there is nothing else in all the world so good as a few tears at the right time and place.

By the time Bar reached the law-office, therefore, he was as clear-headed and ready-witted as the Judge himself could have asked for, and the latter confessed his surprise at the way his young friend comprehended every point of the story, and at the really important things he was able to bring to light from his “old time” memory.

“There will be no difficulty whatever,” exclaimed the Judge. “Indeed, I do not imagine Mr. Norton, or those he represents, will attempt to make any. I never saw a case more entirely clear of doubt.”

“It’s all like a dream,” said Bar, “but I suppose it’s true.”

“True enough,” said the Judge. “Now go and get a lunch, for you must be tired enough, with all these papers. By the time you get back, I think, the rest will be here.”

Barnaby was glad enough to get a bit of sunlight and a breath of fresh air, not to speak of[Pg 371] coffee and oysters, although the latter were by no means unwelcome.

When he returned to the law-office, however, he passed through the outer rooms, to Judge Danvers’s own private door, with a heart which beat more and more briskly at every step.

He put his hand upon the latch, but the door seemed almost to swing open of itself, and then, as he entered, a tall figure sprang from an opposite chair and a well-known voice exclaimed:

“Bar Vernon! You here?”

“Mr. Brayton? You?” returned the no less astonished Barnaby; but still another gentleman was on his feet, and the voice of Judge Danvers broke in with:

“Mr. Ashbel Norton, let me make you acquainted with your nephew, Barnaby Vernon; Bar, my boy, this is your uncle, your mother’s brother, of whom I told you.”

Barnaby and Mr. Norton were now standing, their hands tightly grasped, gazing in each other’s faces, and the latter said, in a steady, deliberate voice:

“Judge Danvers, there isn’t the shadow of a doubt. He’s the very image of his father. Every[Pg 372] member of the Norton family will swear to him on sight. He hardly needs the papers.”

“But he has them!” exclaimed the Judge. “It was from his own hands that I received them, when he engaged me as his counsel. Your brother Robert has also repeatedly acknowledged him as his nephew, Barnaby Vernon.”

“Please don’t speak of him again, Judge,” said Mr. Norton, sadly. “We shall not trouble him for his declaration in this matter. You are my nephew’s counsel. May I ask who has acted as his guardian?”

“Dr. Randall Manning, one of our most distinguished and wealthy physicians. He sent him to an academy at Ogleport, in this State, and Barnaby came from there this morning by telegraph.”

“I wish I had,” remarked Bar, “instead of by that slow old stage-coach and that railway train.”

“Fact!” exclaimed the Judge. “I believe I’m getting excited. Anyhow, Mr. Norton, your nephew is in excellent hands, and I may say we are all deeply interested in his fortune.”

“Please include me in that list,” interposed[Pg 373] George Brayton. “I owe Bar about as much as one man can owe another.”

“How is that?” asked Norton.

“How?” said George. “Why, he saved my sister’s life last Saturday, and, I think likely, all the rest of our party, by his coolness and courage and good conduct. I’ll tell you all about it some day. All I want to say now, Mr. Norton, is that not only you find your nephew in good company, but he’s a relative any man may be proud to find.”

Whatever of pecuniary loss or disappointment Bar Vernon’s “discovery” was likely to bring to either of those two men, they seemed to be equally glad to find him, only Mr. Norton exclaimed:

“Poor Lydia! If she could only have lived till now!”

And then he added:

“Judge, I really don’t care to see Robert again, and yet I can’t bear to do anything against him. He is my brother, after all.”

“Make yourself easy on that score,” said the Judge. “The District Attorney called upon me last night, with reference to a man named Montague,[Pg 374] and I think we need say no more on that head.”

“And yet,” remarked Brayton, “it was somehow on his account that my own family are brought into this arrangement of the Vernon property, is it not?”

“Only as a sort of reparation,” returned Norton. “Robert’s wife, whose life he destroyed by his wickedness, was your mother’s sister, and Barnaby’s mother, my sister Lydia, was tenderly attached to her. The legacy you have in her will was her own to give, and was to have been doubled if this will of Bar’s father came to light, so that property could be reached. My own legacy is in the same shape. If, however, we had found the Vernon will, and Barnaby had died before his mother, all the property would have been hers, and your share and mine would have been vastly increased. I’m glad enough, however, that he is alive to claim it, for I have abundance already, and enough of the Vernon estate comes to me by my sister’s will as it is.”

“And to me and mine, too, I should say,” exclaimed Brayton. “We haven’t a ray of legal claim to it, otherwise than by will.”

[Pg 375]“Then it seems,” suddenly remarked Bar, “that I am an Englishman, after all.”

“Scarcely that,” said Mr. Norton, with a smile. “Your mother was an Englishwoman, but your father was a New Yorker, and you were born within three miles of where you are now sitting. You have to come over and pay your English relatives a visit, however, as well as to take possession of your property.”

“That can be done for him,” said Judge Danvers. “For my own part, I should strongly oppose removing him from school at present. I wish, Mr. Norton, you’d have a talk with Dr. Manning about that.”

“Both he and yourself have a perfect right to be consulted,” said the Englishman, heartily. “We owe you a great deal of consideration in this matter; Mr. Brayton, do I understand that young Vernon is actually under your care at Ogleport?”

“Exactly,” said George, “and boarding in the same house. He has Dr. Manning’s own son for a room-mate.”

“Dr. Manning’s own son!” exclaimed Norton. “Well, Judge Danvers, do you know, this is all[Pg 376] very remarkable? very gratifying? Considering the habits and character of my poor brother, you know we were almost afraid to find my nephew. Expected, of course, he’d be unfit for civilized society, and all that sort of thing. It’s a very happy disappointment, I assure you.”

“I should think it would be,” said the Judge, with enthusiasm, “and it’ll get better and better, the more you know him. Why, sir, I meant to make a lawyer of him.”

“Perhaps you’ll have a chance, yet,” replied Norton; “but he may prefer something else when he grows up and has seen a little of the world.”

“The world, indeed!” remarked Judge Danvers. “I’m not half sure but he’s seen as much of the world as an average Englishman already.”

Inasmuch as the important question of Bar Vernon’s recognition by his relatives could now be safely regarded as settled, and his personal presence was hardly required for the transaction of mere “law business” between Judge Danvers and “the representative of the Vernon estate,” Bar and George Brayton shortly left the lawyer’s office for a walk and talk on their own account.

[Pg 377]“And so,” said Brayton, “you and I are not even cousins, after all.”

“Queer kind of cousins,” said Bar, with a laugh, “but I am half sorry for it. I wish I could call your mother my aunt, you see. I wonder if I’ve any aunts over in England? I must ask Norton about that. How do you like him?”

“Very much,” said Brayton. “But do you mean to go to England with him?”

“Not by a good deal!” exclaimed Bar Vernon, with great energy. “Do you suppose I’d go over there, as ignorant as I now am, and let them all find it out? No, sir! I’ll study ten times harder than ever, till I feel I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

“That’s right,” said Brayton. “So you’d better go back to Ogleport with me and I’ll look out for your improvement.”

“But will you go on teaching school, now you’re so rich?”

“I shan’t be so very rich,” said Brayton, “and it’ll be months before I get hold of any of it. Besides, I’m under contract at the Academy, unless they let me off. By the way, when we[Pg 378] get back, I want you to keep this whole matter a profound secret.”

“I will indeed,” replied Bar.