"No," replied Omer.
"Then why did you not?"
"I had no orders, sir. Mr. Fauntleroy only told me to look whether such an entry was there."
"Then you must go now–What's that you are about? Winter's settlement? Why, you have had time to finish that twice over."
"I have been out all the morning with that writ," pleaded Omer, "and could not get to serve it at last. Pretty well three hours I was standing in the passage next his house, waiting for him to come out, and the wind whistling my head off all the time."
Mr. Kenneth vouchsafed no response to this; but he would not disturb the clerk again from Winter's deed. He ordered another, Mr. Green, to go to St. James's church for the copy, and threw him half-a-crown to pay for it.
Young Mr. Green did not relish the mission, and thought himself barbarously used in being sent upon it, inasmuch as that he was an articled clerk and a gentleman, not a paid nobody. "Trapesing through the weather all down to that St. James's!" muttered he, as he snatched his hat and greatcoat.
It struck three o'clock before he came back. "Where's Kenneth?" asked he, when he entered.
"In the governor's room. You can go in."
Mr. Green did go in, and Mr. Kenneth broke out into anger. "You have taken your time!"
"I couldn't come quicker," was Mr. Green's reply. "I had to look all through the book. The marriage is not there."
"It is thrift to send you upon an errand," retorted Mr. Kenneth. "You have not been searching."
"I have done nothing else but search since I left. If the entry had been there, Mr. Kenneth, I should have been back in no time. It is not exactly a day to stop for pleasure in a mouldy old church that's colder than charity, or to amuse oneself in the streets."
Mr. Fauntleroy looked up from his desk. "The entry is there, Green: you have overlooked it."
"Sir, I assure you that the entry is not there," repeated Mr. Green. "I looked very carefully."
"Call in Omer," said Mr. Fauntleroy. "You saw the entry of Robert Carr's marriage to Martha Ann Hughes?" he continued, when Omer appeared.
"Yes, sir."
"You are sure of it?"
"Certainly, sir. I saw it and read it."
"You hear, Mr. Green. You have overlooked it."
"If Omer can find it there, I'll do his work for a week," retorted young Green. "I will pledge you my veracity, sir–"
"Never mind your veracity," interrupted Mr. Fauntleroy; "it is a case of oversight, not of veracity. Kenneth, you have to go down to Clark's office about that bill of costs; you may as well go on to St, James's and get the copy."
"Two half-crowns to pay instead of one, through these young fellows' negligence," grumbled Mr. Kenneth. "They charge it as many times as they open their vestry."
"What's that to him? it doesn't come out of his pocket," whispered Green to Omer, as they returned to their own room. "But if they find the Carr marriage entered there, I'll be shot in two."
"And I'll be shot in four if they don't," retorted Omer. "What a blind beetle you must have been, Green!"
Mr. Kenneth came back from his mission. He walked straight into the presence of Mr. Fauntleroy, and beckoning Omer in after him, attacked him with a storm of reproaches.
"Do you drink, Mr. Omer?"
"Drink, sir!"
"Yes, drink. Are the words not plain enough?"
"No, sir, I do not," returned Omer, in astonishment.
"Then, Mr. Omer, I tell you that you do. No man, unless he was a drunken man, could pretend to see things which have no place. When you read that entry of Robert Carr's marriage in the register, you saw double, for it never was anywhere but in your brain. There is no entry of the marriage in St. James's register," he added, turning to Mr. Fauntleroy.
Mr. Fauntleroy's mouth dropped considerably. "No entry!"
"Nothing of the sort!" continued Mr. Kenneth. "There's no name, and no marriage, and no anything—relating to Robert Carr."
"Bless my heart, what an awful error to have been drawn into!" uttered Mr. Fauntleroy, who was so entirely astounded by the news, that he, for the moment, doubted whether anything was real about him. "All the expense I have been put to will fall upon me; the widow has not a rap, certain; and to take her body in execution would bring no result, save increasing the cost. Mr. Omer, are you prepared to take these charges on yourself, for the error your carelessness has led us into? I should not have gone on paying costs myself but for that alleged entry in the register."
Mr. Omer looked something like a mass of petrifaction, unable to speak or move.
"But for the marriage being established—as we were led to suppose—we never should have gone on to trial. Mrs. Carr must have relinquished it," continued Mr. Fauntleroy.
"Of course we should not," chimed in the managing clerk.
"I thought there must be some flaw in the wind; I declare I did, by the other side's carrying it on, now that I find Mynn and Mynn knew of the alleged marriage," exclaimed Mr. Fauntleroy. "I shall look to you for reimbursement, Omer. And, Mr. Kenneth, you'll search out some one in his place: we cannot retain a clerk in our office who is liable to lead us into ruinous mistakes, by asserting that black is white."
Mr. Omer was beginning to recover his senses. "Sir," he said, "you are angry with me without cause. I can be upon my oath that the marriage of Robert Carr with Martha Ann Hughes is entered there: I repeated to you, sir, the date, and the names of the witnesses: how could I have done that without reading them?"
"That's true enough," returned Mr. Fauntleroy, his hopes beginning to revive.
"Here's a proof," continued the young man, taking out a worn pocket-book. "I am a bad one to remember Christian names, so I just copied the names of the witnesses here in pencil. 'Edward Blisset Hughes,' and 'Sophia Hughes,'" he added, holding it towards Mr. Fauntleroy.
"They were her brother and sister," remarked Mr. Fauntleroy, in soliloquy, looking at the pencilled marks. "Both are dead now; at least, news came of her death, and he has not been heard of for years: she married young Pycroft."
"Well, sir," argued Omer, "if these names had not been in the register, how could I have taken them down? I did not know the names before, or that there ever were such people."
The argument appeared unanswerable, and Mr. Fauntleroy looked at his head clerk. The latter was not deficient in common sense, and he was compelled to conclude that he had himself done what he had accused Mr. Green of doing—overlooked it.
"Allow me to go down at once to St. James's, sir," resumed Omer.
"I will go with you," said Mr. Fauntleroy. The truth was, he was ill at ease.
They proceeded together to St. James's church, causing old Hunt to believe that Lawyer Fauntleroy and his establishment of clerks had all gone crazy together. "Search the register three times in one day!" muttered he; "nobody has never done such a thing in the memory of man."
But neither Omer nor his master, Mr. Fauntleroy, could find any such entry in the register.
CHAPTER III.
DETECTION
Afternoon school was over. Mr. Wilberforce had been some time at home, and was bestowing a sharp lecture on his son Edwin for some delinquency, when he was told that Lawyer Fauntleroy waited in his study. The master brought his anger to a summary conclusion, and went into the presence of his visitor.
"My business is not of a pleasant nature," he premised. "I must tell you in confidence, Mr. Wilberforce, that after all the doubt and discredit cast upon the affair, Robert Carr was discovered to have married that girl at St. James's—your church now—and the entry was found