Of the four personages who constitute the trunk and chief branches of the heraldic tree, three lived, thrived, and died at Market Basing; and, at the time our story opens, the last is alive and more thriving than any of his ancestors were: for money gets money. If you have but much, you must, in spite of yourself, have more. rich-the widow two days after her husband leaving every sixpence of their fortune to their only child, Matthew. And here begins the reign of Mortiboy the Second. He married, started a brewery on a good scale, and brought up the only child who lived out of a family of five, what he called a "scholard." In his turn, he died, and was buried; and all he had inherited from his father, with all he had gained and saved added to it, he left to his son. Not one groat's worth to church, charity, or his wife's poor relations. The town of Market Basing is on the high road to the North, at such a distance between two more important places that, in the old days, all the coaches stopped there time enough for the passengers to get down, and eat a meal. So, before railways upset everything on the coach roads, there was no traveller between London and the Land o' Cakes who did not know Market Basing a great deal better than people nowadays know Rugby Junction on the great iron road-taking in his successor smartly; kept the from London to Liverpool. The principal inn was the Horse and Jockey; and at this substantial hostelry, the gentleman we will designate Mortiboy the First filled the important, though anything but exalted, post of ostler. Like many other ostlers on the road, Mat Mortiboy had the right of supplying the beasts under his care with his own hay and corn and his master's water. The profit arising from such sale was his perquisite: and a very handsome one it was: and close indeed Mat always was about the savingswhich he kept in an old stocking in his hayloft, and in a leathern pocket-book under his coarse shirt. On the other hand, the proprietor of the Horse and Jockey was proverbially easy as an old shoe while the servants got fat, the master starved. In tavern businesses, this is not unfrequently the case. Then begins the long reign of Mortiboy the Third-" the scholard." This man was a genius of the lowest order: your pounds, shillings, and pence, and two and two make four, genius. He cut the Horse and Jockey brewery on; sent out travellers all over three or four adjacent counties with his beer, and put half his fortune into Melliship's bank. He became banker, alderman, oracle, and esquire. His union with Miss Ann Ghrimes was blessed with happiness and three children: Ann, his first-born, who married her cousin, Mr. Ghrimes, and became Lydia Heathcote's mother. Susan, d.s.p. And Richard Matthew-the first of his race that ever had a two-barrelled Christian name before the patronymic Mortiboy. The "scholard" smoked his pipe, and drank fourpenny-worth of gin and water cold, at the rival house-for he dared not face the poor man at his old inn-and took the best company away with him. Onethird of a shilling's-worth of liquor lasted him a whole evening. If it did not, he smoked a dry pipe, or helped himself from the blue jug In 1746, times were bad at Market Basing; that was at everybody's service, pretended it and when nobody else would lend mine host was gin and water, and was just as happy. of the Horse and Jockey the money he stood But he learned a great deal in the parlour of in sore need of, his ostler, Mat Mortiboy, the Angel: who was safe, and who was tumbled two thousand guineas into his lap- queer: which were the warm men, and at his lawyer's: and took a mortgage deed which the poor devils out in the cold. And and covenant for interest at six per centum he turned his information to good account per annum in return. This + was his sig-letting Brown overdraw to his heart's connature to the parchment, for he could not write. Mat was master of the situation now. The innkeeper, old and ruined, died, and Mr. Mortiboy and his fat wife became host and hostess of the principal inn at Market Basing. This worthy couple were sharp as needles, and saving as magpies. They died tent, but pulling his neighbour Smith up short at half a crown. This man was wise in his generation. He saw that Market Basing would spread itself: so bought every acre of land close to the town that came into the market, and lent money on the rest. Living in a time that saw what are called "manias," Mr. Mortiboy bought good value-when all the world about him were red-hot for selling: and sold-bad valuewhen all bought. He carried out the great Tory statesman's maxim-like many another trader-long before it was put into epigrammatic form. All his life he bought in the cheapest market, and sold in the dearest; and he never slept out of his native town a single night, nor wasted a single farthing piece in his life. He lived before tourists were born. Ann, his daughter, got a thousand pounds down on her wedding day, and all the world grasped Alfred Ghrimes's hand, and congratulated him. But his wife died soon after Lydia, their daughter, was born, and he never got another penny from his father-in-law. Indeed, the banker hinted that, after what had happened, he ought to refund the thousand. pounds. But Ghrimes was a farmer, and farmers are a good deal "cuter" than the men of cities give them credit for being. He did not hand over the money, and thence arose a mortal feud. He and his father-in-law never spoke again. So, when the third Mortiboy died, he had two children to leave his fortune to. He left his daughter Susan twenty-five thousand pounds in hard cash; and the rest, residue, and remainder of his estate, of whatsoever kind and wheresoever situate, to Richard Matthew, his only son. Ready money reigned in his father's stead. He wore calico drawers till his father's trousers fitted him in everything but length. At school, he was always the boy who regarded a penn'orth of marbles as an investment to be turned into three-halfpence—not played with. And this, his father told him, if kept up the year round (Sundays left out), was fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty per cent. per annum. And the boy entered into this great fact, and understood it: worked it out on his slate, and kept it up in apples, pegtops, tennis balls, and other commodities, when marbles were out and these things in. So he grew up, and was initiated early in life into the mysteries of keeping a country bank. And when once you are on the inside of the counter, you find there is no mystery in it at all. It consists in getting hold of as much of other people's money as ever they will leave with you-and putting it out, by way of earning interest for your own benefit. In lending an apple or two where you know there is an orchard: but not so much as a seedling pip where there isn't one. In his father's time, Melliship, Mortiboy, & Co. had split. The Melliship of the day started a new bank; and Ready-money's father kept the old one to himself, continuing to trade under the old style and title. Then, besides the bank, he had the brewery -a sound, prosperous concern, that only troubled him twice a year: to take the profits. The Holmshire iron is not bad stuff for working up when mixed with Staffordshire pig. A clever man, named Hardinge, found this out, and mortgaged his estate for thirty thousand pounds to work the ore in the stone that lay under nearly every field. But it was not enough. He applied to Mr. Mortiboy, and mortgaged his foundry and his plant, and further encumbered his estate. More money was wanted, and Mortiboy would lend no more. A few thousands would have made the works a fortune to him. But the banker pulled up short, and nobody dared "stand against Mr. Mortiboy," though a dozen would have formed a company and found the money. Mr. Mortiboy foreclosed. Mr. Hardinge died of a broken heart. And works, plant, and estate were the mortgagee's. Ghrimes, a man of hard head and sound judgment, managed everything. He was Ready-money Mortiboy's factotum, and was incorruptibly honest. Even his master could trust George Ghrimes, and he did. He would have let him dip his hands in treacle, and put them into a bag of little Koh-i-noors in the dark, and never felt a qualm. But for this weakness, he conceived it his duty to distrust everybody else. He made this vice -in his own eyes-a virtue. He did not believe in any honesty but the honesty of paying what perforce you must pay. And by himself and his standard he gauged all other men-and thus suspected everybody: his sister, his niece, his clerks, his servants, his customers. So in Market Basing the charitable called him eccentric-the malicious, a miser. Small towns develop characters. You can see in a tumbler what you fail to observe in a vat. Mr. Mortiboy was usually called "Old Ready-money." There were half a dozen anecdotes about the origin of the sobriquet. Who wouldn't like to have it? This was the commonly received version:-There had come to Market Basing parish church a new parson, and his wife had come with him. Proverbially, new brooms sweep clean, and the parish was in an awful state of heathenism; so she, poor thing, bent on all sorts of good works, called first-subscription-book in hand-on Mr. Mortiboy, their richest parishioner. She did not know he went to chapel. She encountered a shabby man in the bank-on the doorstep, indeed. "Is Mr. Mortiboy in?" "My name, ma'am-at your service." They stood on the pavement outside. The rector's wife opened her eyes, and took him in from top to toe in a glance -as a quick woman can. "Are you Mr. R. M. Mortiboy, sir?-Mr. Rob-" "Ready-money Mortiboy, ma'am." So the tale is told. I don't know if this is the true version; but the old man carried his nickname to his grave, and never was called anything else-behind his back. He was the last man in the world to be asked for alms. Polite enough, but hard as nails. He had a formula of his own invention, applicable to all occasions. If anything was wanted for Market Basing -he was the greatest victim of the poor rates. If flannels and New Testaments were to be given to the starved niggers of Quashiboo, he thought the stream of charity should be turned on the hungry and houseless ones at home. But if anybody made a call on him for these, he was instantly impressed with the importance of foreign missions. For both he was a little deaf, and times were bad, and his interest in changes of the weather absorbing. Now, when his guests were gone, and he was alone, his sister's charge concerning the stained glass window preyed on Mr. Mortiboy's mind. It was all very well for a bishop, in a cathedral-where there are plenty of windows, and plenty of moneyto have a memorial window put up to his memory; but, in his sister Susan, such an injunction was an outrage on propriety. Old Ready-money had very clear notions of his own station in life. And, after all, a parish church had no business with coloured windows. At chapel, they did without them. And then, his sister's station was not high enough for memorial windows. "I'll take Battiscombe's advice about it if it's down in the bill, 'thirteen and fourpence engaged a long time.' If I can get out of such an absurd direction, I will. What will people say? Very likely, think I did it— and think I'm mad into the bargain. It's just the sort of thing Francis Melliship would go and do, now. Put up a stained glass. window! She should have left it-poor thing!-to her Sunday school teachers and parsons, that have had her money for years, to do that for her! They would have done it, no doubt!" Mr. Mortiboy quite chuckled at this humorous idea. His face suddenly changed, however, from gay to very grave. The four candles lighted for his guests were burning on the table! He quickly blew out three, quenching the last spark of fire at the wick ends with a wet forefinger and thumb-avoiding smell, and possible waste. Then he held up the decanters to the solitary candle, and measured their cubic contents of port and sherry with his greedy eye. Next, he took the candle up in his shaky old hand, walked slowly round the table, and collected the glasses. "Ghrimes has left half his last glass. Well, George Ghrimes never did drink anything, so I'm not surprised." He poured the half glass of port back into the bottle. |