Now I was feeling set that Master Jasper should never know what was
in that green leather case, and I cared no more for what he thought
or what he felt than I should have done if he had been a common
thief as, God forgive me, he was in my eyes at that hour. So I crept
behind him softly, softly, an inch at a time, till I got to where I
could see the coffin; and if you'll believe a foolish old woman, I
kept looking at that dead face till I nigh forgot what I was there
for. And while I was standing mazed like and stupid, young Master
Jasper had got out the green case, and was turning over what was in
it in his hands.
I got him by the two elbows behind, and he started like a horse that
has never felt even the whip will do at the spur's touch. Almost at
the same time my heart came leaping into my mouth, and if ever a
woman nearly died of fright, I was that woman, for some one behind
me put a hand on my shoulder and said, 'What's all this?'
Young Sir Jasper and I both turned sharp. It was the doctor. His
ears were as quick as mine, and he had heard the key too, I suppose.
Anyhow, there he was, and he picked up the papers young Sir Jasper
had let fall, and says he, 'I will deal with these, young gentleman.
Go you to your room.' And Sir Jasper, like a kicked hound, went.
Then I began to tell my share in that night's work. But the doctor
stopped me, for he had seen me and watched me all along. Then he
stood by the coffin, and went through what was in the little leather
case.
'I must keep these now,' he said, 'but you shall keep your promise
and put them beside him before he is buried.'
And the next day, before the funeral, I went alone and saw my master
again, and gave him his little case back, and I thought I should
have liked him to know that I had done my best for him, but he could
not have known that without knowing of what young Sir Jasper had
done, and that would have broken his heart; so when all's said and
done, perhaps it's as well the dead know nothing.
And after the funeral we was all in the library to hear the will
read, and the lawyer he read out that the personal property went to
Robert the gamekeeper, and the entailed property would of course be
young Sir Jasper's.
And young Sir Jasper, oh that ever I should have called him my
boy!--he rose up in his place and said that his father was a doting
old fool and out of his mind, and he would have the law of them,
anyhow, and my late dear master not yet turned of fifty! And then
the doctor got up and he said--
'Stop a bit, young man; I have a word or two to say here.'
And he up and told before all the folks there straight out what had
passed last night, and how young Sir Jasper had willed to rob his
father's coffin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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