For the present, at least, Jim was elated with a pardonable pride in his watch, and, after the manner of youths thus recently set up, he looked at it again and again during his walk next morning across the headlands to Ballycastle, where he had to catch the Ballymoney car, thence to proceed to Ballymena by train. Ho was looking at his watch for the hundredth time, and half smiling to himself at his rash and boastful words as to making it the means of discovering his family history, when a sudden thought occurred to him. He looked long and eagerly at the watch, while his pale face flushed up. “I have it,” he muttered; “and if I’m right, I shall take down the minister a bit.”

It was a long, tedious journey by foot and car and rail that lay before him, and his patience was almost exhausted when he reached his destination. Once arrived, he immediately sat down to write in his humble lodgings. The watch bore the name of the maker, “John Turnwell, Leeds, 7002.” Was it not possible that a record had been preserved, stating when and to whom the watch had been sold. Ho did not know whether such was the practice, but at all events he would inquire. A brief note was soon written and left ready for the morning mail; then the tired and excited lad went to bed, and dreamed of a beautiful lady who said she was his mother, and that his father was a lord, and had been murdered by the repulsive-looking man in the locket; and then a carriage and pair came thundering up to his lodgings, and his employer stood in the hall as he passed down, and congratulated him, and called him “my lord.” Then he thought he saw the man in the locket looking at him with hard, cold mouth, and then the face grew smaller till it shrunk into the locket, and it was open on the breast of the dead woman as she lay on the sands; and he saw himself and Elsie standing by the body. In a moment he passed into the little figure, and felt himself turning to call Mike McAravey, as he had done so long ago. The horror of that last vision awoke him. It was late, and he had only time to get his letter posted and to hurry to his office.

But Jim could not rest, till in the course of a few days a letter arrived with the Leeds post-mark. He trembled as he took it in his hand, and then as he read a flush mantled up his face, and he burst into a laugh as he saluted himself in the cheap mirror that adorned the mantelpiece

“Aw, mi lord! Glad to make your lordship’s acquaintance!”

The note ran thus:

“Watch and Clock Factory, Leeds,

“August 19, 187.

“Sir, In reply to your favour of the 16th inst. we beg to say that we always keep a register of all watches made or sold by us.

“N, an English lever made by ourselves, appears to have been purchased by Lady Waterham, of Burnham Park, in this neighbourhood, on the 21st of October, 185.

“We should advise you to communicate at once with her ladyship, who is now at home.

“We remain, Sir, your obedient Servants,
“J. Turnwell & Co.

“Mr. J. McARAVEY,
“Market Street, Ballymena, Ireland.”

It was enough to turn the head of an ambitious boy. Poor Jim, though generally cautious and reticent, could not contain himself, and, in strict confidence, revealed his coming splendour to one or two of his companions. It was soon reported that Jim McAravey had come in for a fortune of 50,000 pounds, and was the son of a lord. Even his employers seemed to treat him with new consideration, and, though annoyed that the affair had got so soon bruited about, he could not feel angry when he saw himself pointed at in the street, and half jokingly spoken of as “my lord” by his fellow-clerks.

Jims first step was to write a somewhat haughty letter to the Rev. Cooper Smith, and an excessively gushing and almost affectionate one to Elsie. Both letters were shown to George Hendrick, the consequence being that one afternoon on returning home Jim found the Scripture-reader awaiting him. The young lord (as they called him) was about to offer a gracious but distant welcome, when Hendrick, who had heard the town talk, anticipated him by exclaiming

“Well, Jim, my boy, I’m afraid you have been making a rare fool of yourself!”

“I would thank you to explain your language,” said the young man with great hauteur.

“There, don’t be offended, lad,” replied the reader, kindly; “I only meant it was a pity you let this thing get talked of before you had more certainty. I needn’t tell you, Jim, how glad we shall all be to hear of anything really to your advantage.”

“I’m not aware that the thing has been talked about. I only mentioned it to one or two personal friends, with a view to obtaining their advice.”

“Your friends have not been discreet, then,” said Hendrick; “why, Jim, the whole town is talking about you, and should this come to nothing, you will have made yourself ridiculous. Had you no truer or older friends with whom you might have consulted? I ’m sorry for this, Jim.”

“If you mean Mr. Smith and yourself, I must say you did not seem to take much interest in my welfare and Elsie is not much better,” he added, bitterly. “Perhaps it will be different now.”

“Come, Jim, you don’t believe a word of all that. You know well who your truest friends are, though we don’t always encourage all your notions. But will you not let me see this famous letter?”

Hendrick read the letter carefully, and then asked, “And what do you mean to do, Jim?”

“Why of course go over to see her ladyship as soon as I can arrange matters here. I shall speak to Messrs. Moore to-morrow, and see whether they can let me free at once I should think under the circumstances they would.”

“My dear Jim,” cried the reader, “are you mad? You don’t seriously mean to give up, or run the risk of losing, your situation for what may after all prove a wild goose chase?”

This was just what Jim had contemplated, and it was not without difficulty that good George Hendrick brought him to a sounder judgment. Unlike Jim’s youthful friends, who, partly animated by love of mischief and partly by youth’s natural hopefulness, had encouraged him to indulge the most glowing fancies, Hendrick showed him gently, but plainly, how fragile was the foundation on which he had been building. The watch might have been stolen, or lost, or given away. There might turn out to be no direct or traceable connection between Lady Waterham and the unknown woman whose property it had been. Jim was not shaken in his own private conviction (strengthened as it had been by his dream), but he was too hard-headed not to admit the reasonableness of Mr. Hendrick’s arguments; and the more he heard of the tales that had been circulated, the more deeply he regretted his pride and misplaced confidence. He finally made no objection to Hendrick’s proposal that the matter should be left in the hands of the Rev. Cooper Smith, who was going to England in the course of ten days, and was willing to make a slight detour to Leeds. So it was settled. The watch and locket were entrusted to the rector, who promised to see the watchmaker and Lady Waterham.

“You seem more annoyed than anything else,” said Jim crossly to Elsie, when the final arrangements were being made in the rectory study.

“I cannot say I am pleased,” replied the girl. “I fear lest you should be disappointed, Jim; and, on the other hand, I don’t want to be anything but what I am. I have not been brought up a lady, and to find that I had been born one would be no pleasure. If you could be a lord, Jim, without affecting me, it would be all right.”

“Why, Elsie, you have no ambition.”

“None to be put in a false position, which I could not rightly fill.”