The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves | Page 6

conversation with
a "Pish, what dost talk of docking the intail? Dost not know that by the
statute Westm. 2, 13 Ed. the will and intention of the donor must be
fulfilled, and the tenant in tail shall not alien after issue had, or before."
"Give me leave, sir," replied Tom, "I presume you are a practitioner in
the law. Now, you know, that in the case of a contingent remainder, the
intail may be destroyed by levying a fine, and suffering a recovery, or
otherwise destroying the particular estate, before the contingency

happens. If feoffees, who possess an estate only during the life of a son,
where divers remainders are limited over, make a feoffment in fee to
him, by the feoffment, all the future remainders are destroyed. Indeed, a
person in remainder may have a writ of intrusion, if any do intrude after
the death of a tenant for life, and the writ ex gravi querela lies to
execute a device in remainder after the death of a tenant in tail without
issue." "Spoke like a true disciple of Geber," cries Ferret. "No, sir,"
replied Mr. Clarke, "Counsellor Caper is in the conveyancing way--I
was clerk to Serjeant Croker." "Ay, now you may set up for yourself,"
resumed the other; "for you can prate as unintelligibly as the best of
them."
"Perhaps," said Tom, "I do not make myself understood; if so be as
how that is the case, let us change the position, and suppose that this
here case is a tail after a possibility of issue extinct. If a tenant in tail
after a possibility make a feoffment of his land, he in reversion may
enter for the forfeiture. Then we must make a distinction between
general tail and special tail. It is the word body that makes the intail:
there must be a body in the tail, devised to heirs male or female,
otherwise it is a fee-simple, because it is not limited of what body.
Thus a corporation cannot be seized in tail. For example, here is a
young woman--What is your name, my dear?" "Dolly," answered the
daughter, with a curtsey. "Here's Dolly--I seize Dolly in tail--Dolly, I
seize you in tail"--"Sha't then," cried Dolly, pouting. "I am seized of
land in fee--I settle on Dolly in tail."
Dolly, who did not comprehend the nature of the illustration,
understood him in a literal sense, and, in a whimpering tone, exclaimed,
"Sha't then, I tell thee, cursed tuoad!" Tom, however, was so
transported with his subject, that he took no notice of poor Dolly's
mistake, but proceeded in his harangue upon the different kinds of tails,
remainders, and seisins, when he was interrupted by a noise that
alarmed the whole company. The rain had been succeeded by a storm
of wind that howled around the house with the most savage impetuosity,
and the heavens were overcast in such a manner that not one star
appeared, so that all without was darkness and uproar. This aggravated
the horror of divers loud screams, which even the noise of the blast

could not exclude from the ears of our astonished travellers. Captain
Crowe called out, "Avast, avast!" Tom Clarke sat silent, staring wildly,
with his mouth still open; the surgeon himself seemed startled, and
Ferret's countenance betrayed evident marks of confusion. The ostler
moved nearer the chimney, and the good woman of the house, with her
two daughters, crept closer to the company.
After some pause, the captain starting up, "These," said he, "be signals
of distress. Some poor souls in danger of foundering--let us bear up
a-head, and see if we can give them any assistance." The landlady
begged him, for Christ's sake, not to think of going out, for it was a
spirit that would lead him astray into fens and rivers, and certainly do
him a mischief. Crowe seemed to be staggered by this remonstrance,
which his nephew reinforced, observing, that it might be a stratagem of
rogues to decoy them into the fields, that they might rob them under the
cloud of night. Thus exhorted, he resumed his seat, and Mr. Ferret
began to make very severe strictures upon the folly and fear of those
who believed and trembled at the visitation of spirits, ghosts, and
goblins. He said he would engage with twelve pennyworth of
phosphorus to frighten a whole parish out of their senses; then he
expatiated on the pusillanimity of the nation in general, ridiculed the
militia, censured the government, and dropped some hints about a
change of hands, which the captain could not, and the doctor would not,
comprehend.
Tom Clarke, from the freedom of his discourse, concluded he was a
ministerial spy, and communicated his opinion to his uncle in a whisper,
while this misanthrope continued to pour forth his