Naboth's Vineyard E-Book

Fred M. White

• Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 64

Beschreibung

Naboth's Vineyard by Fred M. White is a gripping tale of greed, ambition, and the lengths to which men will go for power and possession. When a small, coveted vineyard becomes the focal point of a ruthless land dispute, old rivalries resurface and hidden secrets are brought to light. The story weaves through dark motivations, unexpected twists, and a complex web of deceit, as the characters are pushed to their moral and ethical limits. Will the pursuit of wealth and control destroy lives, or will justice prevail in the end? This dramatic and suspenseful narrative will captivate readers from beginning to end.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Naboth's Vineyard

NABOTH'S VINEYARD

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

Landmarks

Table of Contents

Cover

Naboth's Vineyard

By: Fred M. White

Edited by: Rafat Allam

Copyright © 2024 by Al-Mashreq Bookstore

First published in Chambers's Journal, June 1, 1889

No part of this publication may be reproduced whole or in part in any form without the prior written permission of the author

NABOTH'S VINEYARD

Near King Ahab's palace in Jezreel there was a vineyard owned by a man named Naboth.

One day Ahab said to Naboth, "Let me have your vineyard; it is close to my palace, and I want to use the land for a vegetable garden. I will give you a better vineyard for it or, if you prefer, I will pay you a fair place."

"I inherited this vineyard from my ancestors," Naboth replied. "The Lord forbid that I should let you have it!"

— 1st Kings 21

CHAPTER I

'BUT it is such a pretty scheme, Heath. The place has been my envy for years; and now to let such an opportunity go by would be almost like flying in the face of Providence.'

Colonel Sandhurst spoke very warmly; in a way, indeed, which was quite a contrast to his usual calm judicious utterance. He had his long neatly clad limbs planted very widely apart before the fireplace of Mr Heath's private office; while the latter gentleman sat at a desk stabbing a blotting-pad with a penknife, as if he were slaughtering his client's arguments as they cropped up, hydra-headed, before this legal Hercules.

'It is a pretty scheme,' said he, with a certain dry irritation. 'I've seen plenty of them in my time—mostly failures. And I don't mind telling you in all candour that I hope this will be one. Why can't you leave Mrs Charlesworth alone? Here you have one of the most beautiful places in Sussex, a handsome almost princely income to keep it up, and yet nothing but the possession of Fernleigh will content you.'

'But don't you see there is no house on my property down here?—three thousand acres in a ring-fence with Fernleigh and its five hundred

right in the centre. It seems very hard—'

'It is a great deal harder for my poor client, Mrs Charlesworth, to turn out of her old home.—Oh! of course as mortgagee you have a perfect right to foreclose, and I am a great fool to allow sentiment in business.'

'But if the woman can't afford to live there, what right has she to stay?'

'Cannot you understand that if this long-delayed Chancery business was concluded, she would have ample means? I wish you would abandon this plan, Sandhurst; I do indeed. If you only knew how attached the poor little woman is to her home; how happy she is there with her daughter, and her blind boy—there, hang it, you couldn't do it! Of course I am a weak-minded old man, but—'

The Colonel pulled his long moustaches in some perturbation of spirit. Usually speaking, he was a kind-hearted individual enough, and really felt very sorry for Mrs Charlesworth's unmerited misfortunes. But at the same time it is very annoying, as most landed proprietors know, to have a long stretch of some one else's property exactly in the centre of your own. And, moreover, the Bartonsham estate was celebrated for its preserves, while the unhappy owner of Fernleigh had no sympathy with the pursuit of either foxes or pheasants. Colonel Sandhurst had no personal antipathy to his neighbour; nevertheless, when an opportunity offered for a heavy mortgage, he jumped at the chance. And now that more than two years' interest was in arrear, and the Colonel in a position to foreclose at any moment, the temptation was too strong to be resisted.

'I do not see why I should drag a lot of sentiment into the matter,' he said reflectively. 'Of course I am very sorry, and all that kind of thing; but if I don't have it, some one else will, you see.'

'I am afraid so,' the lawyer groaned parenthetically. 'I see that plainly enough.'

'Very well, then. Again, if it comes to a sale, I shall probably be run up to a fancy sum by one or more of the lady's friends.—Come, I will make you a proposition. My mortgage is for seven thousand five hundred, and for this the property is legally mine. But I don't want to appear grasping. Suppose we call it a sale, and I give you another two thousand five hundred for your client I call that a fairly generous offer.'

Mr Heath dug his knife three times in rapid succession into the blotting-pad and dropped it with a sigh of defeat. Of course it was a generous offer, an extremely generous offer, and yet beyond the folded blue papers and red tape and tin boxes, there was before his mind's eye a picture framed by a long avenue of ancient fruit-trees: the vision of a gentle-faced little lady with a blind lad leaning on her arm, and the last words she had said to him were ringing in his ears now. They were such simple words, too: 'If I lose this,' she had said with a wistful glance, 'I lose all hope—not for myself, but for the children.'

'I should like to refuse it,' observed the lawyer. 'I should like, metaphorically speaking, to throw your mortgage in your face and snap my fingers at your legal rights. It all comes of this atrocious sentiment; and the worst of it is that your offer is so magnificent, that, speaking as a man of business, I dare not refuse it; only you must give us a week to think it over.'

Colonel Sandhurst smiled benignly, and expanded, as a man will who is conscious of having done a generous action. 'Fernleigh is a beautiful old house,' he observed complacently, 'and will be the very place for Frank and his bride. The old soldiers are pretty tough in a general way; but hard service begins to tell after fifty,' and I should like to see my boy settled before long. Ethel Morton is an extremely nice girl, and will make the lad a good wife,'

'Provided always, as we say, that the lad is willing. I wouldn't set my heart too firmly upon that match, if I were you, Colonel. Captain Frank is no longer a boy, to be commanded into matrimony.'

'He was always a very obedient son, though; and by Jove, sir, one to be proud of. Of course you heard all about that Victoria Cross and the

fearful wound he received; but he will be here next week to answer for himself. In his last letter he says that the six months at Madeira have quite set him up again. If anything had happened to him—'

Here the speaker paused and hummed a fragment of operatic music with a great show of palpably assumed gaiety, while Mr Heath looked out across Castleford's principal street, deeply interested in the facetious conversation of two cabmen in the sunny sleepy square below.

'Would you like to go over Fernleigh?' he asked suddenly, his mind still dwelling uneasily on the old topic 'It would ease my client's mind to know that she is not in the hands of an investment-seeking ogre; and, as a matter of fact, I don't believe she knows the name of her principal creditor.—What do you say to running over one day this week?'

'Well, I don't know,' said the gallant warrior hesitatingly; 'it seems almost like an intrusion, and in anything but the best taste. You see I—'

'Yes, I see you haven't pluck enough to face Mrs Charlesworth. But, as you are bound to meet some time, the sooner the better. I am going out there this afternoon, and will mention it.'