and that he could be got to consider Lawyer Larkin as a friend worth
keeping, that estate might be had a bargain--yes, a _great_ bargain.

Larkin walked off to Brandon, but there he learned that Captain _Brandon_
Lake as he now chose to call himself, had gone that morning to London.

'Business, I venture to say, and he went into that electioneering without
ever mentioning it either.'

So thought Larkin, and he did not like this. It looked ominous, and like
an incipient sliding away of the Brandon business, Well, no matter, all
things worked together for good. It was probably well that he should not
be too much shackled with considerations of that particular kind in the
important negotiation about Five Oaks.

That night he posted a note to Burlington, Smith, and Co., and by
Saturday night's post there came down to the sheriff an execution for
123_l._ and some odd shillings, upon a judgment on a warrant to confess,
at the suit of that firm, for costs and money advanced, against the poor
vicar, who never dreamed, as he conned over his next day's sermon with
his solitary candle, that the blow had virtually descended, and that his
homely furniture, the silver spoons his wife had brought him, and the two
shelves half full of old books which he had brought her, and all the rest
of their little frugal trumpery, together with his own thin person, had
passed into the hands of Messrs. Burlington, Smith, and Co.

The vicar on his way to the chapel passed Mr. Jos. Larkin on the
green--not near enough to speak--only to smile and wave his hand kindly,
and look after the good attorney with one of those yearning grateful
looks, which cling to straws upon the drowning stream of life.