"Don't sink the ship for the extra happorth of tar, skipper," he said, in a low voice (which, however, sitting near, I could just catch), "give them rope--give them rope! We have been a long time at the job without hanging them!" At this the sheriff was silent, only motioning Mr. Ablethorpe to give the papers to Mr. McMath. Our fiscal, next to my father the best-known man in the county, was a greyish, grave man with twinkling eyes, mutton-chop side whiskers, a little, sly, tip-titled nose, with a dry bloom on the top of it, as if he liked his spirits neat. He never smiled, yet he was always smiling. His mouth, when about his duties, would be grave as that of Rhadamanthus, while within an inch of it a wrinkle twitched merrily away. His eyes could reprove a too light-hearted witness, or frown down an improperly jovial defendant, all the while that a mischief-loving sprite, hovering within, held his sides at the unseasonable jesting. On this occasion, however, it was gravely enough that Mr. McMath adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles and proceeded to read. CHAPTER XXXV THE WITNESSING OF MISER HOBBY "_The Witnessing and last statement of Me, Howard Stennis, sometime weaver to my trade, afterwards laird of the lands of 'Deep Moat Grange,' near Breckonside--to which is added my last Will in my own handwriting_. "I, HOWARD STENNIS, being of sound mind, and desiring that after my death nothing should be left uncertain, have decided to put on record all that has occurred. This I do, not in the least to exculpate myself, because what I have done, I have done calmly and with intention aforethought. "This paper is for the sole use of the heir whom I shall choose. "If it be his will not to accept a fortune accumulated under these conditions or in the way I made mine, I have joined to this a paper with the names of those to whose heirs reparation can be made. But it is my present intention to seek rather some strong man, at war with other men--a hater of his kind, as I have good reason to be--who will continue my work after I am gone. So that in time, if the life of our instrument, Jeremy Orrin, be spared, one of the greatest fortunes of the age may be built up. "From my youth I was called Miser Hobby. And that most unjustly. Because I wrought day and night that I might leave my one daughter Bell in a position of a lady. But she chose to throw my lifetime's work in my face. She left me without a word for a penniless boy in a uniform. My heart had been black and bitter before, but there had always been a bright spot upon it. That was Bell. Afterward it became black altogether, for I cast Bell out of my heart and sight like an untimely birth. I worked harder, yet for all that I wearied of the work. To be rich suddenly, to have all in my power, and to deny to Bell and her tramping rascal of a redcoat a sup of broth, a bite of bread--that alone I counted sweet. It would come to me some day, I knew.