Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger
By WINSTON CHURCHILL
I may as well begin this story with Mr. Hilary Vane, more frequentlyaddressed as the Honourable Hilary Vane, although it was the gentleman'sproud boast that he had never held an office in his life. He belonged tothe Vanes of Camden Street,—a beautiful village in the hills nearRipton,—and was, in common with some other great men who had made anoise in New York and the nation, a graduate of Camden Wentworth Academy.But Mr. Vane, when he was at home, lived on a wide, maple-shaded streetin the city of Ripton, cared for by an elderly housekeeper who had moreedges than a new-fangled mowing machine. The house was a porticoed onewhich had belonged to the Austens for a hundred years or more, for HilaryVane had married, towards middle age, Miss Sarah Austen. In two years hewas a widower, and he never tried it again; he had the Austens' house,and that many-edged woman, Euphrasia Cotton, the Austens' housekeeper.
The house was of wood, and was painted white as regularly as leap year.From the street front to the vegetable garden in the extreme rear it wasexceedingly long, and perhaps for propriety's sake—Hilary Vane lived atone end of it and Euphrasia at the other. Hilary was sixty-five,Euphrasia seventy, which is not old for frugal people, though it is justas well to add that there had never been a breath of scandal about eitherof them, in Ripton or elsewhere. For the Honourable Hilary's modest needsone room sufficed, and the front parlour had not been used since poorSarah Austen's demise, thirty years before this story opens.
In those thirty years, by a sane and steady growth, Hilary Vane hadachieved his present eminent position in the State. He was trustee for Iknow not how many people and institutions, a deacon in the first church,a lawyer of such ability that he sometimes was accorded thecourtesy-title of "Judge." His only vice—if it could be called such—wasin occasionally placing a piece, the size of a pea, of a particular kindof plug tobacco under his tongue,—and this was not known to many people.Euphrasia could not be called a wasteful person, and Hilary hadaccumulated no small portion of this world's goods, and placed them aspropriety demanded, where they were not visible to the naked eye: and beit added in his favour that he gave as secretly, to institutions andhospitals the finances and methods of which were known to him.
As concrete evidence of the Honourable Hilary Vane's importance, when hetravelled he had only to withdraw from his hip-pocket a book in whichmany coloured cards were neatly inserted, an open-sesame which permittedhim to sit without payment even in those wheeled palaces of luxury knownas Pullman cars. Within the limits of the State he did not even have toopen the book, but merely say, with a twinkle of his eyes to theconductor, "Good morning, John," and John would reply with a bow and agenial and usually witty remark, and point him out to a nobody who sat inthe back of the car. So far had Mr. Hilary Vane's talents carried him.
The beginning of this eminence dated back to the days before the Empire,when there were many little principalities of railroads fighting amongthemselves. For we are come to a changed America. There was a time, inthe days of the sixth Edward of England, when the great landowners foundit more profitable to consolidate the farms, seize the common lands, andacquire riches hitherto undreamed of. Hence the rising of tailor Ket andothers, an