“Oh, it's merely a matter of form,” said the lawyer, riding up. “For
heaven's sake, madam, be peaceable; let my friends, Higgs, Biggs, and
Blatherwick, arrange with me. I am surprised that none of their people
are here. All that you have to do is to eject us; and the rest will
follow, of course.”
“Who has taken possession of this here property?” roars Jemmy, again.
“My friend Mr. Scapgoat,” said the lawyer.--Mr. Scapgoat grinned.
“Mr. Scapgoat,” said my wife, shaking her fist at him (for she is a
woman of no small spirit), “if you don't leave this ground I'll have
you pushed out with pitchforks, I will--you and your beggarly blackamoor
yonder.” And, suiting the action to the word, she clapped a stable fork
into the hands of one of the gardeners, and called another, armed with
a rake, to his help, while young Tug set the dog at their heels, and I
hurrahed for joy to see such villany so properly treated.
“That's sufficient, ain't it?” said Mr. Scapgoat, with the calmest air
in the world. “Oh, completely,” said the lawyer. “Mr. Tuggeridge, we've
ten miles to dinner. Madam, your very humble servant.” And the whole
posse of them rode away.
LAW LIFE ASSURANCE.
We knew not what this meant, until we received a strange document from
Higgs, in London--which begun, “Middlesex to wit. Samuel Cox, late of
Portland Place, in the city of Westminster, in the said county, was
attached to answer Samuel Scapgoat, of a plea, wherefore, with force and
arms, he entered into one messuage, with the appurtenances, which John
Tuggeridge, Esq., demised to the said Samuel Scapgoat, for a term which
is not yet expired, and ejected him.” And it went on to say that “we,
with force of arms, viz, with swords, knives, and staves, had ejected
him.” Was there ever such a monstrous falsehood? when we did but stand
in defence of our own; and isn't it a sin that we should have been
turned out of our rightful possessions upon such a rascally plea?
Higgs, Biggs, and Blatherwick had evidently been bribed; for would you
believe it?--they told us to give up possession at once, as a will
was found, and we could not defend the action. My Jemmy refused
their proposal with scorn, and laughed at the notion of the will: she
pronounced it to be a forgery, a vile blackamoor forgery; and believes,
to this day, that the story of its having been made thirty years ago,
in Calcutta, and left there with old Tug's papers, and found there, and
brought to England, after a search made by order of Tuggeridge junior,
is a scandalous falsehood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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