329
Down came the Brandon boxes. The prudent attor-
ney turned the key in the door, and forth came the vol-
uminous marriage settlement of Stanley Williams Lake,
of Slobberligh, in the county of Devon, late Captain, &c.
&c. of the first part, and Dorcas Adderley Brandon, of
Brandon Hall, in the county of &c. &c. of the second part,
a'id so forth. And as he read this pleasant composition
through, he two or three times murmured approvingly,
i;Yes — yes — yes." His recollection had served him
quite rightly. There was the Five Oaks estate, special-
ly excluded from settlement, worth 1.400/. a year; but
it was conditioned that the said Stanley Williams Lake
was not to deal with the said lands, except with the con
sent in writing of the said Dorcas, &c. who was to be a
consenting party to the deed.
If there was really something " unsound in the state
of Lake's relations," and that he could be got to consider
Lawyer Larkin as a friend worth keeping, that estate
might be had a bargain —yes, a great bargain.
Larkin walked off to Brandon, but there he learned
that Captain Brandon Lake, as he now chose to call him-
Belf, had gone that morning to London.
"Business, I venture to say, and he went into that
electioneering without ever mentioning it either."
That night he posted a note to Burlington, Smith, and
Co. and by Saturday night's post there came down to the
sheriff an execution for 123/. and some odd shillings, upon
a judgment on a warrant to confess, at the suit of that
firm, for costs and money advanced, against the poor Vi-
car, who never dreamed, as he conned over his next day's
sermon with his solitary candle, that the blow had virtually
descended, and that his homely furniture, together with
his own thin person, had passed into the hands of Mesofi.
Burlington, Smith, and Co.