of his life, my cousin Adam had been rather wayward in his youth. After
the completion of his articles of clerkship, in the office of an eminent
firm in the Temple, he oscillated, for several months, between Mount
Parnassus and the Temple of Justice. During that period, he made out a
_catalogue raisonné_ of above three hundred authors,--most of them men
of considerable eminence,--who had deserted law for literature; and my
cousin Adam would, perhaps, have followed their example, had not a young
lady whom he loved,--and of whose taste and judgment he entertained a
very high opinion,--treated a copy of verses, composed by him in her
praise, and which he considered his poetical _chef-d'ouvre_, not merely
with coolness, but positive contempt. Her sneers at his rhapsody were
so galling, that he set his face for ever against love and
literature,--lived an attorney, and died a bachelor.
A good hand at making out bills of costs is an invaluable acquisition to
a legal practitioner; a superior statement of charges being, in fact, a
concise but clear history, subdivided into items, of the suit to which
it refers. Adam Burdock's attendance books were masterly performances in
this respect: almost every action, or legal affair, was, as I discovered
during my examination of his papers, an interesting little romance;
and there appeared to be much of that quality which is, by many modern
writers, termed poetry, in the law. My cousin's bills frequently
contained moral, as well as pecuniary charges against his clients:
for the sake of being explicit, he was evidently compelled, on many
occasions, to envelop an accusation in a formal debit. All attornies, as
I have since been told, labour, more or less, under this disadvantage:
a man acts wisely, therefore, in keeping his legal adviser's bill “aloof
from public eye;” it is often a record of follies and offences, for
which, perhaps, after they are passed, he blushes and repents. A
precise, old-fashioned solicitor's ledger would form a capital volume
for the study of human nature: the characters of his clients, their
whims, their frailties and their sins, are accurately unfolded in its
pages; the sources and consequences of events may therein, without
difficulty, be traced; the gradations of a spendthrift, from opulence to
penury, are finely marked by the progressive _venues_ from Bond Street
to the Bench, in which the attendances against him are laid; and a
wholesome moral may, very often, be found in the concluding items of a
lawyer's bill.
My cousin Adam's draft sketches of costs, the elaborate marginal
memoranda which he had made on them, apparently, for his own
amusement,--being, perhaps, under the influence of the _cacoethes_
which, in his younger days, he had “scotch'd, not kill'd,”--and the
documents to which such sketches and memoranda referred, afforded data
for the following tales. Should they prove deficient in interest to the
reader, I must either have erred in selecting, or failed in narrating
them; for many of my cousin's papers, and especially his briefs, were to
me such amusing details of matters of fact, that, for the first time in
my life, I heartily enjoyed a wet Saint Swithin's day.
[Illustration: 315]
THE MATHEMATICIAN.
“A glorious morning, Hassell,” said a spruce middle-aged man, as he
walked up one side of the old square of Furnival's Inn, with a small
valise under his arm, to a short, pale, elderly gentleman, who was
listlessly strolling, in a morning gown, slippers, and velvet cap, on
the opposite pathway, and in a contrary direction;--“a glorious morning
as ever was seen,--bright--clear--but by no means sultry:--an excellent
morning, I protest, and just to my taste.”
“Why, sir,” replied the pale old gentleman, “I must say it's fine
country weather; and, I dare swear, delightful to you, who are just on
the brink of quitting the miserable metropolis until the morrow of All
Souls.”
“No, no,” interrupted the first speaker, in a brisk tone; “I shall only
be away a month; Trout and Thomas is appointed at bar early in the term,
and I must be home after the first three days of pheasant shooting to
marshal my evidence. I've a _subpoena duces tecum_ to produce the papers
in Wagstaff's commission at the Cornwall assizes;--_that_ carries me
clear to Bodmin: and I'm going on a visit to an old client, who lives
but eleven miles further; so that the costs out of pocket of my autumnal
rustication, this year, will be but a flea-bite.”
“Ah! thou'rt a fortunate fellow,” said Hassell, with a sigh; “here have
I been tied by the leg, ever since Trinity term, with annoyances growing
out of Joshua Kesterton's will; and fine weather makes me rabid, because
I can't go into the country to enjoy it. Adam Burdock and I will now be
the only two principals left in the Inn, except bed-ridden Bailey and
poor mad Royston.”
“Burdock does not ruralize, I believe.”
“Not he: and if he had a mind so to do, he couldn't just now; for he's
shackled with the same case as myself.”
“But can't you meet each other half-way, and close it at once?”
“Impossible:--it's such an Augean stable, that a regiment of attornies,
with a legal Hercules at their head, could not do the needful in a
night. We can't get at the facts,--at least we could not until within
these few days; and the results of our investigations are so
unexpected and staggering, that Adam and I,--and, indeed, all parties
concerned,--are well nigh paralysed. Such a case has not come under my
cognizance for years: if you were not in such a hurry I'd surprise you.”
“I'm not pressed,--not at all. I share a chaise with another witness who
picks me up in his way from the city; so I have only to keep my eye on
the gates:--pray step across.”
“No, hang it! the sun shines there; see how it exposes the clefts and
time-worn face of the building, so that the entire side of the Inn looks
as though it were in the last stage of decrepitude: it even makes _you_
look ten years older than you say you are, friend Waters. An elderly man
should always walk in the shade.”
“What whims and fancies!” said Waters, stepping lightly across the
square. “You're the strangest fellow!--but come, your case, in a few
words.”
“Thus it is with us, then excuse me, but even in the shade you look
really past the figure you put yourself at:--let me Bee, fifty-four,
isn't it?”
“Forty-seven! my good fellow! What the deuce--”
“Rely upon it you're labouring under a mistake: it's full thirty years
since I first met you in Jay's writ of right.--Speaking of you, I
should say, in defiance of verbal statement founded on memory,--which is
treacherous, I find, with regard to age, when we are getting grey,--but
judging from the date written by the hand of time on the face of the
deed, in wrinkles as crabbed as court-hand--”
“I'm sixty. Well, well, be it so; and now for your case.”
“No, Waters, you are not sixty; because if you were, by my reckoning,
I should be sixty-seven, which I am not: but to resume. This is our
case:--Joshua Kesterton came to London with no character, and nothing
but a penny loaf in his pocket Good luck threw him in the way of the
well-known Paul Winpennie: Paul had compassion on him, and raised him,
by degrees, from an errand boy in his office, to first clerk; and, at
last, took him in as joint partner in all his concerns. After some time,
Paul retired to enjoy a splendid ease for the rest of his life. At the
end of five years, he discovered a secret, namely, that an immense
quantity of leisure was the worst stock a mercantile man could possibly
have on hand. He was suddenly seen in the city again: whether he was not
so keen as when he left it, or men had grown keener during his
retirement, I know not; but Paul Winpennie, under whose touch every
thing used to turn into gold, made ducks and drakes of his money; and,
by half-a-dozen unlucky, or, as the world says, mad-cap speculations,
was reduced from affluence to comparative beggary.”
“Well, all this occurs every day, Hassell,” said Waters.
“Ay, ay; but these are only preliminary facts.”
“Unfortunately--”
“Hold your tongue, and hear me out. Well, the inquest jury--I omitted
to say he was found dead one morning in his room;--the inquest jury
returned a verdict of' 'died by the visitation--'”
“But I thought it was generally believed that he died of a broken heart,
produced by grief.”
“We have nothing to do with broken hearts and grief, as a man of your
standing on the rolls ought to feel; we can only be governed by the
record. But if the coroner's return had been _felo de se_, there would
have been little for the crown to take but his wife; and she, I think,
from all I know of her, would have been deemed an incumbrance, by most
people; although she soon got another husband.”
“What! pauper as she was?”
“I said no such thing: if you interrupt me, I shall punish you by being
prolix. Joshua Kesterton departed this life very shortly after his
friend and benefactor, Winpennie, and, in a spirit of gratitude to the
founder of his fortune, bequeathed a legacy of ten thousand pounds to
Paul's widow.”
“Bravo!”
“No, sir, it was not 'bravo!'--he acted like an ass; for his own
daughter, whom he left residuary legatee, was beggared by the
bequest. Partly through his own ignorance of the actual state of his
affairs,--partly through unexpected but apparently valid claims, made
on his estate after his death, and the failure of a firm, who were
his principal creditors,--when we obtained a tolerable insight to his
affairs, we discovered that, after satisfying the creditors, and paying
the legacy to Mrs. Winpennie, which, you perceive, was a positive
bequest, whereby she had a clear claim of priority over his residuary
legatee, the poor girl, instead of having, as her father doubtlessly
expected, a fine fortune, will scarcely get enough to pay for her
mourning.”
“A had case,” said Waters; “but won't Mrs. Winpennie do something for
the girl?”
“That's a riddle which I can't solve,” said Hassell; “for, before she
had an opportunity to do so, or, in fact, before she knew that her
legacy would make a skeleton of the estate, she got snapped up by a
young fellow, who says he's a Dane, but whom I suspect to be a Kerryman.
From all I can learn, he doesn't feel disposed to forego a farthing;
and, as the woman married him without a settlement, he can do as he
pleases, you know, with the money, when he gets it. I sincerely wish
it may be soon, so that I can get out of town. The investigation of the
claims of the principal creditors for whom I am concerned, is now within
an ace of being concluded. As soon as the executors get our releases,
of course, this gentleman, as he calls himself, who married the widow
Winpennie, will insist on the full legacy; and however well inclined our
friend Burdock, and his clients the executors, may be towards the poor
girl, who, I must tell you, was married into a mighty high, but very
poor family, before her father's death, I can't see how they can help
her. By George! here she comes,--I dare say, on a visit to Burdock,--and
without her husband! That's odd. Poor thing! I'd rather not seem to see
her. Let us cross over, and I'll stroll with you to the gateway.--Don't
stare at her, and I'll be obliged to you.”
The two attornies walked to the other side of the square, and the lady
passed hastily down the Inn towards Burdock's chambers. As she ascended
the staircase she heard him speaking, in rather a tender tone, at the
door of his office, apparently, to some person who was taking leave of
him; and, on reaching the first landing-place, she met a female, attired
in a very gaudy manner, and altogether of rather singular appearance,
whose handkerchief was held to her eyes as though she were weeping, or
desirous of concealing her face. When his fair client reached the office
door, which still remained open, Burdock was pacing to and fro within,
evidently much vexed and agitated.
“Are you alone, Mr. Burdock?” timidly inquired the lady, after she had
stood at the door for a short time without being able to attract the
notice of the attorney.
“My dear madam, I ask a thousand pardons,” replied Burdock, advancing
towards her; “I have been so annoyed that--Did you meet a lady in
sulphur and sky-blue?”
“I did, sir: she appeared to be in tears.”
“All! poor woman! she is much to be pitied; and yet, I protest, her
appearance is so questionable, that I sincerely regret that the unhappy
state of her affairs led her to pay me a visit. Had she not brought a
letter, which I hold in my hand, from a most respectable friend in the
country, I should certainly have scrupled to receive her. She's very
unfortunate, though, I declare.”
“But what are her griefs to mine, sir?”
“My dear Mrs. Wyburn, as I have often told you, bad as your case is,
there are thousands who would deem your situation a state of bliss
compared with what they suffer. Here, for instance, is this poor woman,
forty years of age at least, weak enough to come to me with paint on
her cheeks, and dressed in blue and brimstone, but with acute feelings,
notwithstanding her folly, who marries a man for love, and, in a few
days after the ceremony, is deserted and robbed by him of what should
have supported her in old age.”
“Wretched woman! like me, then, she is a beggar, I suppose!” said Mrs.
Wyburn.
“I fear the poor creature is almost penniless, indeed:--her business
with me was to receive a small sum, which my friend, from whom she
brought the letter I hold, had confided to me three years ago, to invest
for her. I placed it in the hands of your late lamented father; and she
holds his note for the amount: but we can't pay her. If she had not told
me she had a husband in whom the title now vested, having had no notice
from him of the marriage, she must, of course, have had her money:--but
now it's impossible. And the woman implored me so not to let her starve,
that, in order to pacify and get rid of her, I have been compelled to
request her to call again; for which I am now most heartily sorry. I
feel ashamed to have her seen go out of my office. But, odso! my dear
madam! how is it that I see you alone?--Where is your husband?”
“In prison!”
“At whose suit?”
“In truth, I cannot tell: it is enough for me to know that he is a
prisoner, and that I do not possess the means of setting him at liberty.
Kind Mr. Burdock, will you still listen to me?--Will you give me your
counsel?”
“I am grieved--heartily grieved,” said Burdock; “but I really feel at a
loss how to advise--how to benefit you.”
“Oh! you can--you can, indeed; or, if you cannot, there is none on earth
who will. You know not half of my distresses. I am a thousand-fold more
wretched than you imagine. Pity me, sir;--pity me, and I will pray for
you.”
“I do pity you, most sincerely,” said Burdock, considerably affected;
“but let me implore you to be calm.”
“I will be calm as marble, sir. I have told you my husband is in prison,
without shedding a tear;--and now, without a sigh, I will tell you,
that my sorrows are of such a nature that I cannot--dare not--must not
breathe a hint to him of what I suffer.”
“You positively alarm me, my dear madam. I cannot imagine you to have
been guilty of any imprudence: and if not, what is there that a wife
devotedly attached, as I know you are, to her husband, cannot confide to
his bosom?”
“Oh! much, much, Mr. Burdock. I have no friend,--none in the world, to
whom I can tell my afflictions, but you; and I have no claim on you to
hear them: you have endured too many vexations, in your struggles for my
welfare, already.”
“I regret that no better success has attended my poor endeavours, Mrs.
Wyburn; but, believe me, that as far as prudence will allow, my best
exertions are still at your service.”
“Then you will hear and advise me?”
“I will, as I hope for mercy, to the best of such judgment as I am
endowed with.”
“Oh! thank you, thank you!--on my knees I will thank you.”
“Nay, nay! I must not be repaid thus: I shall charge the consultation in
my bill, and I hope you will one day pay it,” said the attorney, with a
smile. “Come, again let me entreat you to be calm.”
“I am sure I shall be so:--I have overcome the bitterness of bringing
my mind to tell you my little tale, and I feel capable of doing so
properly. Your kindness gives me additional courage and self-command.
I shall endeavour to restrict myself to simple facts, and I will go
through the task, unless my heart break in the attempt. Are we free from
interruption?”
“Entirely so; my clerks are both out, and I will answer no one until you
have done.”
“Then I will begin at once. I solemnly enjoin you, sir, not to reveal
what I am about to tell you to any mortal; for, alas! it concerns my
husband's honour,--nay, even his life. Much as he loves me, I think he
would deprive me of existence, rather than let me make you acquainted
with his weakness,--I will say his crime: but as it may save us both
from being even more wretched than we are, I will trust it to your ear.
When George Wyburn married me, he knew I had considerable expectations,
and, therefore, did not demand a settlement. My poor father allowed us
a handsome income, while he lived; George was high-spirited and gay, but
not extravagant; and we had enough,--nay, something to spare, after our
yearly expenses were paid, until within a few months before my father's
death, when a sad and sudden change came over us. At Harrowgate, my
husband,--Heaven knows how,--formed an acquaintance with a man, who,
after a short time, was our constant visitor and George's bosom friend.
In three months, under the influence of his associate, my husband became
a gambler and a duellist! He was still kind to me, and I concealed his
faults from my father. Vain were all my attempts to reclaim him: I had
lost my power of persuading him, but yet I feel sure he loved me. I now
bitterly lament my folly in keeping his proceedings a secret from my
father; for he went on in his evil ways. At last the climax arrived:
he lost more than he could pay; and, unable to bear up against the
dishonour which his default would have brought upon him, he abruptly
quitted Harrowgate with a determination to destroy himself. He wrote to
his new friend, stating that, ere the letter reached its destination,
he should be numbered with the dead. He declared that he felt unable to
address his poor wife; but he warmly recommended her to the care of him
to whom he wrote, and begged that her unfortunate husband's fate might
be revealed to her as gradually as possible. The wretch came to me as he
was desired: he told me a little, and I learnt the rest from the letter
which George had sent him. Accompanied by this man, I made all possible
haste to the place whence George had written. I found him alive and
unhurt. His pistols were lying on the table before him, when I rushed
into the room, and he was writing to me: he could not leave the world
without bidding me an eternal adieu! He had lingered over the paper,
which was damped by his tears; but, from the language of the sentence
which he was penning when we entered, his resolution to destroy himself
seemed to have been unshaken; and I am convinced that, had we not
arrived sooner than he expected, and had not his heart urged him to
assure me that he loved and blessed me in his last moments, I should
that day have been a widow. He embraced and wept over me, but blushed
before his friend, and seemed dreadfully enraged at our arrival. When I,
at length, succeeded in soothing him a little, he asked my companion
to advise him how he ought to act. The reply I can never forget. It was
this:--'Why, truly, Mr. Wy-burn, after having stated that you were going
to commit suicide, there is but one course to save your reputation,
namely,--to keep your word: but as I suppose no one but myself, except
your wife, is acquainted with the circumstance, no doubt you will see
the wisdom of suffering certain notions, which, perhaps, are rather too
rigorously attended to, in some quarters, giving place to the dictates
of religion, et cetera;--that is, if you feel satisfied that I can be
depended on to keep your secret.' 'Will you swear to do so?' asked
my husband. 'Nay,' replied the other, 'if you doubt me, you have your
remedy. Were I capable of wronging my friend, I surely should not be
prevented from so doing by the comparatively cobweb fetters of a private
oath.' Subsequently, I prevailed upon him, by reproaches and entreaties,
to promise me solemnly that he would relinquish all thoughts of carrying
his fatal resolution into effect: but he made the most solemn vow, that
if either I or his friend betrayed the weakness, or, to use his own
words, the cowardice he had shewn, in not completing what he
had meditated, he should certainly blow out his brains the first
opportunity; for he never could exist under the idea that he was the
laughing-stock of the world. Summoning up his fortitude, he returned
with us to Harrowgate: and, in a few days, a portion of what he had lost
at the gaming-table was paid; for the remainder, he gave bonds payable
on the death of my father; and I firmly believe he has never touched the
dice-box since.”
“Then I am glad to say all seems to have ended more happily than could
have been expected,” observed Burdock.
“Not so, sir,--not so, indeed,” replied Mrs. Wyburn; “that fatal friend
still hovers near him;--my husband still hugs the snake that destroys
while he embraces him. Those gambling debts, I am certain, were
contracted by my husband with the villain's confederates.”
“Then the bonds have been, at length, put in force against him?”
“They have; and I now owe my husband's loss of liberty, as I once almost
did the loss of his life, to the machinations of Blennerhagen?”
“Blennerhagen!” exclaimed the attorney, considerably surprised;
“you surely do not mean _our_ Mr. Blennerhagen,--he who married Paul
Winpennie's widow!”
“He is the man,” replied Mrs. Wyburn: “he obtained an introduction to
Mrs. Winpennie by means of my husband. Foolish as she is, and lucky as
she has been, in one respect,--alas! to my sorrow,--I sincerely pity
her; for miserable will be her fate. She is linked to a calm, determined
villain, who entertains no spark of affection for her: the possession of
my poor father's legacy, and not her person, was his object in marrying
her.”
“And how do you know this, my dear madam?”
“Oh, sir! Blennerhagen has thrust his confidence upon me, and I have
been compelled to listen to him. Unhappily, he has, or pretends to have,
a passion for me; and I have endured the confession from his own lips.
He has boldly told me, that, had George committed suicide, he should
have offered me his hand, as soon as decency would have permitted him
to do so. You find, sir, that I am as good as my word: I tell you this
without a blush or a tear, while _you_ shudder!”
“Shudder! ay, and I well may. Thou dost not blush or weep, indeed, my
poor young sufferer; but thy cheek is deathly pale, and thy eyes seem
burning in their sockets. I beseech you, let us postpone this.”
“Nay, nay, pray hear me to an end: I have brought my courage to bear it
all; if I relapse, I cannot work upon myself to go through the ordeal
again.”
“But why not unmask this villain--this hypocrite--this wolf?”
“Your honest indignation makes you forget that my husband's life is in
his power. That fatal letter, which George wrote to him when he quitted
Harrowgate with a determination to commit suicide, is still in the
possession of Blennerhagen; I saw him take it from his pocket-book but
two days ago, although he protests to George that it is destroyed:
and the publication of it would, I fear, hurry my husband to
self-destruction at once. I know George's temper so well, that I tremble
at the idea of incurring so great a risk; and yet what else to do I know
not; for the demon, after persecuting me in vain, for months, now holds
that hand-writing before my eyes, and dares me to be virtuous!”
“The monster! I will move mountains, but he shall be defeated,--ay, and
punished.”