The Dead Secret, Wilkie Collins [best historical biographies .TXT] 📗

shirt, with a large torn frill⁠—velveteen trousers, turned up at the ankles⁠—and Blucher boots that had never been blacked since the day when they last left the cobbler’s stall. His color was unhealthily florid, his thick lips curled upward with a malicious grin, and his eyes were the nearest approach, in form and expression, to the eyes of a bull terrier which those features are capable of achieving when they are placed in the countenance of a man. Any painter wanting to express strength, insolence, ugliness, coarseness, and cunning in the face and figure of one and the same individual, could have discovered no better model for the purpose, all the world over, than he might have found in the person of Mr. Shrowl.

Neither master nor servant exchanged a word or took the smallest notice of each other on first meeting. Shrowl stood stolidly contemplative, with his hands in his pockets, waiting for his turn at the gridiron. Mr. Treverton finished his cooking, took his bacon to the table, and, cutting a crust of bread, began to eat his breakfast. When he had disposed of the first mouthful, he condescended to look up at Shrowl, who was at that moment opening his clasp-knife and approaching the side of bacon with slouching steps and sleepily greedy eyes.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Mr. Treverton, pointing with indignant surprise at Shrowl’s breast. “You ugly brute, you’ve got a clean shirt on!”

“Thankee, Sir, for noticing it,” said Shrowl, with a sarcastic affectation of humility. “This is a joyful occasion, this is. I couldn’t do no less than put a clean shirt on, when it’s my master’s birthday. Many happy returns, Sir. Perhaps you thought I should forget that today was your birthday? Lord bless your sweet face, I wouldn’t have forgot it on any account. How old are you today? It’s a long time ago, Sir, since you was a plump smiling little boy, with a frill round your neck, and marbles in your pocket, and trousers and waistcoat all in one, and kisses and presents from Pa and Ma and uncle and aunt, on your birthday. Don’t you be afraid of me wearing out this shirt by too much washing. I mean to put it away in lavender against your next birthday; or against your funeral, which is just as likely at your time of life⁠—isn’t it, Sir?”

“Don’t waste a clean shirt on my funeral,” retorted Mr. Treverton. “I haven’t left you any money in my will, Shrowl. You’ll be on your way to the workhouse when I’m on my way to the grave.”

“Have you really made your will at last, Sir?” inquired Shrowl, pausing, with an appearance of the greatest interest, in the act of cutting off his slice of bacon. “I humbly beg pardon, but I always thought you was afraid to do it.”

The servant had evidently touched intentionally on one of the master’s sore points. Mr. Treverton thumped his crust of bread on the table, and looked up angrily at Shrowl.

“Afraid of making my will, you fool!” said he. “I don’t make it, and I won’t make it, on principle.”

Shrowl slowly sawed off his slice of bacon, and began to whistle a tune.

“On principle,” repeated Mr. Treverton. “Rich men who leave money behind them are the farmers who raise the crop of human wickedness. When a man has any spark of generosity in his nature, if you want to put it out, leave him a legacy. When a man is bad, if you want to make him worse, leave him a legacy. If you want to collect a number of men together for the purpose of perpetuating corruption and oppression on a large scale, leave them a legacy under the form of endowing a public charity. If you want to give a woman the best chance in the world of getting a bad husband, leave her a legacy. Make my will! I have a pretty strong dislike of my species, Shrowl, but I don’t quite hate mankind enough yet to do such mischief among them as that!” Ending his diatribe in those words, Mr. Treverton took down one of the battered pewter pots, and refreshed himself with a pint of beer.

Shrowl shifted the gridiron to a clear place in the fire, and chuckled sarcastically.

“Who the devil would you have me leave my money to?” cried Mr. Treverton, overhearing him. “To my brother, who thinks me a brute now; who would think me a fool then; and who would encourage swindling, anyhow, by spending all my money among doxies and strolling players? To the child of that player-woman, whom I have never set eyes on, who has been brought up to hate me, and who would turn hypocrite directly by pretending, for decency’s sake, to be sorry for my death? To you, you human baboon!⁠—you, who would set up a usury office directly, and prey upon the widow, the fatherless, and the unfortunate generally, all over the world? Your good health, Mr. Shrowl! I can laugh as well as you⁠—especially when I know I’m not going to leave you sixpence.”

Shrowl, in his turn, began to get a little irritated now. The jeering civility which he had chosen to assume on first entering the room gave place to his habitual surliness of manner and his natural growling intonation of voice.

“You just let me alone⁠—will you?” he said, sitting down sulkily to his breakfast. “I’ve done joking for today; suppose you finish too. What’s the use of talking nonsense about your money? You must leave it to somebody.”

“Yes, I will,” said Mr. Treverton. “I will leave it, as I have told you over and over again, to the first Somebody I can find who honestly despises money, and who can’t be made the worse, therefore, by having it.”

“That means nobody,” grunted Shrowl.

“I know it does!” retorted his master.

Before Shrowl could utter a word of rejoinder, there was a ring at the gate-bell of the cottage.

“Go out,” said Mr. Treverton, “and see what that is. If it’s a woman visitor, show her what