On a certain morning, about three weeks after Mrs. Frankland had written to the housekeeper at Porthgenna Tower to mention the period at which her husband and herself might be expected there, Mr. Treverton descended, with his sourest face and his surliest manner, from the upper regions of the cottage to one of the rooms on the ground-floor, which civilized tenants would probably have called the parlor. Like his elder brother, he was a tall, well-built man; but his bony, haggard, sallow face bore not the slightest resemblance to the handsome, open, sunburnt face of the Captain. No one seeing them together could possibly have guessed that they were brothers--so completely did they differ in expression as well as in feature. The heartaches that he had suffered in youth; the reckless, wandering, dissipated life that he had led in manhood; the petulance, the disappointment, and the physical exhaustion of his latter days, had so wasted and worn him away that he looked his brother's elder by almost twenty years. With unbrushed hair and unwashed face, with a tangled gray beard, and an old, patched, dirty flannel dressing-gown that hung about him like a sack, this descendant of a wealthy and ancient family looked as if his birthplace had been the work-house, and his vocation in life the selling of cast-off clothes.
It was breakfast-time with Mr. Treverton--that is to say, it was the time at which he felt hungry enough to think about eating something. In the same position over the mantel-piece in which a looking-glass would have been placed in a household of ordinary refinement, there hung in the cottage of Timon of London a side of bacon. On the deal table by the fire stood half a loaf of heavy-looking brown bread; in a corner of the room was a barrel of beer, with two battered pewter pots hitched onto nails in the wall above it; and under the grate lay a smoky old gridiron, left just as it had been thrown down when last used and done with. Mr. Treverton took a greasy clasp-knife out of the pocket of his dressing-gown, cut off a rasher of bacon, jerked the gridiron onto the fire, and began to cook his breakfast. He had just turned the rasher, when the door opened, and Shrowl entered the room, with his pipe in his mouth, bent on the same eating errand as his master.
In personal appearance, Shrowl was short, fat, flabby, and perfectly bald, except at the back of his head, where a ring of bristly iron-gray hair projected like a collar that had got hitched out of its place. To make amends for the scantiness of his hair, the beard which he had cultivated by his master's desire grew far over his cheeks, and drooped down on his chest in two thick jagged peaks. He wore a very old long-tailed dress-coat, which he had picked up a bargain in Petticoat Lane--a faded yellow shirt, with a large torn frill--velveteen trowsers, 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 unhealthy 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 to-day was your birthday? Lord bless your sweet face, I wouldn't have forgot it on any account. How old are you to-day? 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 trowsers 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 shut on my funeral," retorted Mr. Treverton. "I hav'n't left you any money in my will, Shrowl. You'll be on your way to the work-house 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 an 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 to-day; 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 th