"Nam veluti pueri trepidant, atque omnia coecis
In tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus
Interdum, nihilo quae sunt metuenda magis, quam
Quae pueri in tenebris pavitant, finguntque futura."
LUCRET.
As children tremble, and in darkness quake
At all things near, so we too sometimes shake
At daylight fancies, vain as those which scare
Children in darkness with foreboding fear.
They were not halcyon days in England that succeeded the termination
of the long struggle for liberty and existence, which, during more
than twenty years, had taxed to the uttermost all the resources of the
country; and which, as a whole, must always be regarded by Britons
with pride and exultation. We had given peace to the world; but we
were unable to preserve tranquillity at home. War is, at the best, a
bad education, if sometimes a necessary one, for a young people; and a
mature nation will find that its costs are not only money and men. It
is a lottery on the grandest scale, both of fortune and life, inducing
waste of the one, and recklessness of the other; removing, therefore,
in a great measure, the vulgar motives of action, and importing a
general laxity of principle. In various ways a long war produces an
intestinal feverishness, aggravating any incidental disorder, and
favourable to the designs of incendiaries.
The peace was followed by a general fall in wages. It was a result
beyond the control of legislation; and it would probably have been
unfelt, if prices also had fallen, as naturally they should have done.
But the legislature was able in part to prevent this decline, and
exercised its power in favour of agricultural produce. Flaming
homesteads and shattered machinery soon proclaimed the discontent of
the labouring population.
Political agitators sought to turn this discontent into disaffection.
Parliamentary reform was demanded with a considerable show of
violence. There was much fierce speaking; numbers of clubs started
into existence; individuals disfigured themselves with strange
costumes; mobs collected in great multitudes. Presently budding
Lafayettes discussed the most convenient length for pikes, and
would-be Buonapartes mustered their platoons by moonlight.
There was a good deal that was wicked, and not a little that was
grotesque, in these proceedings. One party persisted in seeing only
the white side of the shield, and declared they were merely
ridiculous; another had eyes only for the black, and exaggerated their
danger. Nothing is so fatal to the cause of civil liberty as the
abuse of the privileges which it confers. The nation consents to wear
chains, to control a rebellious member. Having the gout in its great
toe, the body politic restricts its indulgences. It was so at the
period of which we are treating. The real amount of danger is a
question which the candour of posterity will admit could hardly be
discussed with tranquillity at the time. Certain it is, that alarm was
very great and very general, and under its pressure the nation
resigned for a season some of its dearest birth-rights. Personal
liberty was endangered by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; the
press was shackled; the right of meeting was limited. Arrests were
made far and wide. A north-country squire, trotting quietly along upon
his hack to meet the hounds, was swept off to jail, instead of
sweeping after the fox, suspected of a design to raise the shepherds.
It was a mistake, and it is probable that such were not rare. The
practice of receiving information from spies, and still more the air
of mystery assumed by those in authority, multiplied the apprehensions
which might justly be excited by any tumultuous proceedings.
Cornelius Peach was one of those who were willing to believe the alarm
to be in the main unfounded, and he used good-humouredly to quiz his
sister for the timidity with which she adopted every rumour of the
day. The worthy clerk was clearly in some matters a follower of the
philosopher of Abdera. He very much preferred laughter to tears;
regarded public affairs with a lofty disdain, so long as his roast,
boiled, or hashed was ready at the right time; lived in a Utopia of
his own, and was more likely to die of seeing an ass eating figs than
of any ordinary calamity. He could not understand why an individual
should fret himself concerning parliamentary corruption, tyranny of
government, abuse of patronage, or any other stalking-horse of
sedition. No one had attempted to bribe him; he felt indifferently
free; he was a candidate for no place; he had no vote for anything,
and rejoiced that he had not. His even cheerfulness was wont to make
his friends declare, that their Peach was all sunny side; there were
no signs of shade about him.
His lodger was of a less contented mood: the symptoms of effervescence
had assumed a somewhat menacing aspect around his home. For some time
much disquiet had prevailed among the miners of Somersetshire, and the
same was now rapidly spreading among their Cornish brethren, from
Redruth to St. Ives. Minor outrages were of no uncommon occurrence.
The dread which Miss Peach seemed to entertain of seeing a modern Jack
Straw encamped on Hampstead Heath, was felt on better grounds in the
far-west, and caused trepidation among the tea-sipping gossips of
Kerrier and Penwith. So the orphans learnt from the letters of
Polydore Riches. And they were made rather anxious by perceiving, that
the good chaplain seemed in writing, to disguise the real amount of
his apprehensions. Often in reading his missives, did Randolph and
Helen turn their thoughts fondly towards Trevethlan, and wish they had
never left the towers by the sea.
And in the brother such yearnings were quickened by an ever-increasing
discontent with his position. This feeling had soon driven him from
Winter's chambers, and he was now reading with Mr. Travers, an eminent
special pleader. But dissatisfaction was again creeping over him. It
was true he did not neglect his studies, and he had duly eaten his
dinners to keep Michaelmas Term. Surely there is no fear that any of
our old institutions to which a dinner is attached will wholly die.
There is a strength in the British appetite, against which
utilitarianism may struggle in vain, till hunger and thirst are no
more. So at the Inns of Court. The exercises, and moots, and even the
revels have vanished, but the dinners remain. Attendance on the former
has been commuted into fines to maintain the latter. And long may they
endure, those social meetings, where many a lasting friendship is
formed, and the bonds of brotherhood cemented, which in England unite
an order, declared by D'Aguesseau, _aussi ancien que la magistrature,
aussi noble que la vertu, aussi necessaire que la justice_.
As a novice, Randolph was partly interested and partly disconcerted on
his introduction to these assemblies. He felt a reverence for the old
hall, standing on the site of that of the knights whose dust reposed
in the neighbouring church. He looked with respect on the coats of
arms of the successive treasurers, emblazoned on the oak panelling of
the walls, and subscribed with many a name of high distinction. On the
dais, beneath the portraits of Littleton and Coke, sat some of the
leading advocates of the day, partaking a more luxurious repast than
that allotted to the occupants of the floor below. And on the opposite
side to the young student were the juniors of the bar, men who had
risen, were rising, had not begun to rise, and never would rise.
It was all curious and new. The very gown in which Randolph dined,
rustled on his shoulders with a forensic feeling. The repast was
apportioned to messes of four, all of which had precisely the same
fare. The attendants were called _paniers_; because--an enemy has
suggested--supported by donkeys. The platters were of Peter Piper's
metal, and the cups were earthenware. As at the table of Prior's
pococurante couple--
"Their ale was strong, their wine was port,
Their meal was large, their grace was short."
Trifles all these: forgotten perhaps by the fortunate lawyer, whose
clerk groans under the weight of his brief-bag; ridiculed by the
disappointed man, whose early clients have long disappeared; but
interesting and entertaining to the neophyte, whose ambition foresees
the career of the first, whose self-reliance is too strong to fear the
fate of the second.
These last were the feelings which had inspired Randolph in the
solitude of Trevethlan Castle, and conjured up those airy visions
which seemed so fair in the sight of himself and his sister. The very
first encounter with the world had dimmed the prospect for a moment,
and the brother's subsequent intercourse with it confirmed rather
than diminished his disappointment. It was not that he was
disheartened by perceiving how very inadequate an idea he had formed
of the labour necessary to attain his object. The long rows of
law-calf on Mr. Travers's shelves had no terrors for him. Nor was it
that he felt as yet any decided uneasiness at living under a feigned
name. He had never for an instant imagined it was wrong, and it had
his father's sanction. Yet this circumstance might be a chief source
of his discontent. He had not known the levelling tendency of a public
school, nor the freedom of college. From those early lessons in the
picture-gallery at Trevethlan, he had silently grown up in the
consciousness that he should be the head of an ancient race, and
perhaps, in building his castle in the air, he regarded himself as an
architect in the midst of masons. He never thought of himself as
Morton, humble and unknown, but as the representative of a high
family, recognized and honoured.
So Mr. Griffith was right, and Polydore Riches wrong. But the worthy
chaplain was in no fault. No education could have prevailed against
the circumstances of the case. A youth spent in isolation and reverie,
is almost certain to lead to a manhood of irresolution. The habit of
thinking becomes a curse, when it is developed too early. Such
precociousness is apt to result in a purely negative character. This
was the misfortune of Randolph. And although he carefully pursued his
studies, and concealed his disquietude from Helen, he often sighed for
the peace of his home, and sometimes even thought of abandoning his
scheme, and returning thither.
The same feelings made him distant and reserved in his intercourse
with the men in Hall and at Mr. Travers's chambers. He had no
sympathy with their buoyancy, and he disliked their familiarity. There
was, however, one of the latter, with whom he grew gradually intimate,
having been introduced to him by Mr. Winter. Seymour Rereworth was a
man of calm but decided opinions, of quiet and diligent habits, of
polished manners, and of great attainments. He possessed also the
advantages which Randolph missed so much, having been educated at
Eton, and having obtained high honours at college. Looking to his
profession for distinction more than actual maintenance, he earnestly
and steadily pursued his aim, never revolting from the weary drudgery,
never disheartened by the thorny intricacies, through which the lawyer
is doomed to plod in his way to eminence. Very particular in his
choice of friends, he was interested by the mixture of enthusiasm and
embarrassment which he detected in Randolph, and sought his
friendship. Where Rereworth sought, he won. And he was of great
service to his companion, supplying his want of knowledge of the world
with his own, which was of the best kind; not consisting in a
familiarity with knavery and vice, but able to foil the one and repel
the other; and excelling in all those qualities which are comprised in
the word, tact. He had a large acquaintance in society; was himself
very well connected; was always a welcome guest, and, when he chose to
throw away an evening, had always an invitation available.
Him did Randolph once or twice, during the winter, persuade to come
and spend an evening at Hampstead. And it must be confessed that
Seymour paid his second visit at least as willingly as his first. If
he liked the brother, he no less admired the sister. He mused
sometimes on the circumstances of so singular, he might say so
romantic, a pair. Helen's dark and gentle eyes, and soft and pleasant
tones, haunted him occasionally in his studies, and kept his pen
suspended in the midst of many a tedious draught. But Rereworth was
not a man to fall in love in a hurry.
For Helen, she was always glad to see him. In spite of all her
brother's precautions, she sometimes detected the gloom and discontent
which hung upon his brow, and she saw that Rereworth's society always
charmed them away. Her own life was so tranquil and uniform that she
had soon ceased to regret the quiet of Trevethlan, and she roamed
about the vicinity of Hampstead, seeking a spot she might liken to
Merlin's Cave, and only occasionally disturbed by the letters of
Polydore Riches.