he
captain nor his passenger of the "Bella" came to claim it. Weeks and
months rolled on; the annual allowance of one thousand a year, which
was Roger's by right, was paid into Glyn & Co.'s bank, but no draft
upon it was ever more presented at their counters. The diligent
correspondent ceased to correspond. At Lloyd's the unfortunate vessel
was finally written down upon the "Loss Book"--the insurance was paid
to the owners, and in time the "Bella" faded away from the memories of
all but those who had lost friends or relatives in her. Lady Tichborne
was always full of hope that her son had been saved, and could never
be brought to regard him as drowned; but we have now seen the last of
the real Roger Tichborne, and our next business will be with the
counterfeit.

At last, in the neighbourhood in which Sir James and his wife lived,
it became notorious that the mother was prepared to receive any one
kindly who professed to have news of her son, and naturally when the
story once got wind there were many who tried to profit by her
credulity. Among other adventurers, a tramp in the dress of a sailor
found his way to Tichborne, and, having poured into the willing ears
of the poor mother a wild story about some of the survivors of the
"Bella" being picked up off the coast of Brazil, and carried to
Melbourne, was forthwith regaled and rewarded. There is a freemasonry
among beggars which sufficiently explains the fact, that very soon the
appearance of ragged sailors in Tichborne Park became common. Sailors
with one leg, and sailors with one arm, loud-voiced, blustering
seamen, and seamen whose troubles had subdued their tones to a
plaintive key, all found their way to the back door of the great
house. Every one of them had heard something about the "Bella's" crew
being picked up; and could tell more on that subject than all the
owners, or underwriters, or shipping registers in the world. And poor
Lady Tichborne believed, as is evidenced by a letter of hers written
in 1857, only three years after the shipwreck, to a gentleman in
Melbourne, imploring him to make inquiries for her son in that part of
the world. Sir James, however, though no less sorrowful, had no faith;
and he made short work of tramping sailors who came to impose on the
poor lady with their unsubstantial legends. But Sir James died in
1862. Shortly before this event his only surviving son Alfred had
married Theresa, a daughter of the eleventh Lord Arundel of Wardo