"Enough," said he, "she is yours! And now fetch me a lawyer--let
me make my will and die."
The lawyer was brought,--a dapper, bustling, round-headed little
man, Roorback (or Rollebuck, as it was pronounced) by name. At the
sight of him the women broke into loud lamentations, for they
looked upon the signing of a will as the signing of a death
warrant. Wolfert made a feeble motion for them to be silent. Poor
Amy buried her face and her grief in the bed curtain. Dame Webber
resumed her knitting to hide her distress, which betrayed itself,
however, in a pellucid tear, which trickled silently down, and hung
at the end of her peaked nose; while the cat, the only unconcerned
member of the family, played with the good dame's ball of worsted
as it rolled about the floor.
Wolfert lay on his back, his nightcap drawn over his forehead, his
eyes closed, his whole visage the picture of death. He begged the
lawyer to be brief, for he felt his end approaching, and that he
had no time to lose. The lawyer nibbed[1] his pen, spread out his
paper, and prepared to write.
[1] In Irving's time, quills were made into pens by pointing or
"nibbing" their ends.
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