ay?
For three mortal hours did I listen to my ancient mariner; and how much
am I the wiser for my patience? Clever as you may fancy yourself, my
friend Hawkehurst, you don't seem to be the man for this business. You
have not the legal mind. Your genius is not the genius of
Scotland-yard, and I begin to fear that in your new line you may prove
yourself a failure.

However, where all is dark to me the astute Sheldon may see daylight,
so I'll observe the letter of my bond, and check off the residuum of
the ancient mariner's prosiness.

By dint of much pumping I obtained from my ancient, first, his father's
recollections of Matthew Haygarth a few years before his death, and
secondly, his grandfather's recollections of Matthew in his wild youth.
It seems that in those last years of his life Matthew was a most sober
and estimable citizen; attended the chapel of a nonconforming sect;
read the works of Baxter, and followed in the footsteps of his departed
father; was a kind husband to a woman who appears to me to have been
rather a pragmatical and icy personage, but who was esteemed a model of
womanly virtue, and who had money. Strange that these respectable and
wealthy citizens should be so eager to increase their store by alliance
with respectable and wealthy citizenesses.

In his later years Matthew Haygarth seems to have imitated his father
in many respects. Like his father, he executed more than one will; and,
like his father, he died intestate. The lawyer who drew up his will on
more than one occasion was a man called Brice--like his client,
eminently respectable.

After his marriage, our esteemed Matthew retired to a modest mansion in
the heart of the country, and some ten or fifteen miles from Ullerton.
The mansion in question is at a place called Dewsdale, and was the
property of the wife, and accrued to him through her.

This house and estate of some thirty acres was afterwards sold by the
rev. intestate, John Haygarth, shortly after his coming of age, and
within a year of his mother's death.

This much and no more could I extort from the oldest inhabitant
relative to the latter days of our Matthew.

Respecting his wild youth I obtained the following crumbs of
enlightenment. In the year 1741-2, being then one-and-twenty years of
age, he left Ullerton. It is my ancient mariner's belief that he ran
away from home, after some desperate quarrel with his father; and it is
also the belief of my ancient that he stay