IN CHAMBERS.
"With a rum-tum, tum-tum, tiddy-iddy tum, tiddy-rum-tum, tiddy-iddy
bang!"
This was sung in a low-pitched, not unmusical voice, by a stunted,
thickly-set lad of seventeen or eighteen, being his version of the
well-known "March of the British Grenadiers"; and as he puffed forth the
air in imitation of a wind instrument, the musical youth paraded the
well-furnished office he occupied, with an enormous ebony ruler over his
shoulder, held sword-fashion, and the stove poker in his left hand
carried like a scabbard.
He was so far on the alert that he kept one eye upon a green
baize-covered inner door, evidently leading into a private room, but not
sufficiently watchful to see that another door had been opened, for as
he got through a second strain of the march he called, softly, in
imitation of a commanding officer, "Halt!--right about face. Band to
the front!" Then his jaw dropped, and he made a bound to his desk.
The reason of this change was that a stern, dry-looking, well-dressed
man stood there, with an umbrella in one hand, a blue bag in the other,
and he did not smile, but showed his teeth slightly, as he saw the lad's
confusion.
"Drilling, eh?" he said, shutting the door close behind him. "Going to
join the army?"
"No, sir," said the boy, smartly.
"Of course not," said the visitor. "Much too short."
"Please, sir, I can't help that," said the boy, whose face was now
scarlet; "and I shall grow."
"Only wiser, boy," said the visitor, "not taller. Wiser; and then you
won't go and be shot at for a few pennies a day. Mr Ross in?"
"Don't know, sir. I'll see," said the boy.
"Yes, you do know," snarled the visitor; "and he is in, or else you
wouldn't have gone about on tiptoe. Take in my card."
"Mr Swift, Cripple and Swift," read the boy.
"Yes, and be quick. Time's money, boy."
"Yes, sir. Take a chair, sir," said the lad, whose martial ardour had
cooled into business; and he opened the baize door, let it close behind
him, and knocked at the panel of an inner door, the knock sounding
muffled and distant to the visitor.
"Come in!"
The boy entered a handsomely-furnished room, in the middle of whose
Turkey carpet was a large, well-drawered writing-table, covered with
papers tied up in red and green tape. On one side was a handsome,
polished wardrobe, half open, displaying, hanging from pegs, a couple of
barrister's gowns, looking in the dim interior like a couple of
old-fashioned clergymen hung up to dry, or for some other reason.
In another polished-wood cupboard, with glass doors partly covered with
blinds, were apparently a couple of stuffed barristers in their wigs,
gazing mournfully through the glass at the opening door of the office,
till a second inspection showed them to be wig-blocks, with their legal
horsehair burdens grey and stiff.
Cases full of thick volumes, a couple of busts of famous judges in their
wigs, and here and there an almanack, a pale blue sheet of paper,
printed with the dates of various judges' circuits, and, lastly, a tall
oaken case full of pigeon-holes stuffed to overflowing with legal
papers, formed the surroundings of him who said "Come in."
The speaker was in a dressing-gown and slippers, seated at the
writing-table, with his head resting upon his hands, evidently studying
intently the contents of certain sheets of paper, closely written in a
clear round hand, but with a broad margin, whereon from time to time the
reader made notes, by means of a gold pencil-case.
His face was bent so low that nothing but the broad forehead was visible
when he set one hand at liberty to write; but it could be seen that this
broad, open brow was lined by study, and the dark hair was cut off
closely to the reader's head.
He did not look up when the boy entered, but said, in a quick, decided
voice--
"Well, Dick?"
"Gentleman to see you, sir," said the boy; and he placed a card upon the
writing-table, at which card the reader glanced, but without changing
his position.
"H'm, Mr Swift," he said. "Show him in."
The visitor needed scarcely any showing, for as the boy went back he was
ready to step in at once, and his stern, harsh, rather unpleasant face
seemed to wear a satisfied air as he took all in at a glance.
"Good morning, Mr Ross," he said, as the reader rose and showed the
face of Luke Ross, twelve years older, and pale and thin, but with his
dark eyes, rather deeply set, now full of vigorous intelligence, as he
seemed to look his visitor through and through, and motioned him to a
seat with a wave of a thin, delicate white hand, upon which shone a
heavy unornamented signet ring.
"I think you know our name, Mr Ross," said the visitor, with an air of
self-satisfaction, as he laid his blue bag across his knees.
"Perfectly well, Mr Swift," said Ross, quietly. "I was against you in
that shipping case last week."
"Yes, sir, you were," said the visitor, with a smile that looked like a
snarl; "and you beat us, sir--beat Philliman--and that's why I have
come."
"Mr Philliman worked very hard for your client, Mr Swift," said Luke,
quietly. "I presume that you bear no malice?" he added, with a smile.
"Malice, sir--malice, Mr Ross? Ha, ha, ha! That's very good, sir--
uncommonly good. I'll tell Cripple as soon as I return."
"I know you'll excuse me, Mr Swift," said the young barrister, glancing
at his watch, "if I tell you that my time is very much occupied."
"Of course! To be sure. Yes, my dear sir," said the visitor, busily
opening his blue bag. "I know it is. But as it was our first affair
with you, I thought I would come on myself instead of sending our clerk.
There, sir," he exclaimed, drawing out a folded packet of papers, tied
up with tape, "I have come to show you how we bear malice, sir--our
first brief."
As he spoke he handed the papers to Luke Ross with the triumphant smile
of one who is conferring a great favour, and then, throwing himself back
in his chair, he looked quite disappointed as the barrister just glanced
at the endorsement on the brief, which, among other words, bore certain
hieroglyphics in a crabbed hand--"15 _gs_."
"I am sorry to have troubled you to come, Mr Swift," said Luke, in a
quiet, grave voice, that was very impressive, and, though low, seemed to
fill the room, "but I really must decline."
"Decline!" exclaimed the solicitor, flushing. "Do you know, Mr Ross,
that this may mean an enormous number of briefs from our firm, sir--a
very fortune?"
Luke bowed.
"You are a young man, Mr Ross--excuse me for saying so, sir--just
making a name in your profession. Do I understand you aright, sir? Our
firm, sir, stands high."
"Perfectly aright, Mr Swift," replied Luke, in a voice that quite
seemed to silence the solicitor, who refreshed himself with a
hastily-taken pinch of snuff, and shut the lid of his box with a loud
snap. "I know your firm well, sir; but, as you are aware," he added,
with a grave smile, "there are limits to even an enterprising
barrister's powers, and the profession has been kind enough to give me
more than I care to undertake."
"Ah, exactly, sir--of course--yes," said Mr Swift, smiling, and nodding
his head. "Exactly so, my dear sir. Will you allow me?"
Luke bowed, and before he had quite realised his visitor's intentions,
he had caught up a quill pen, and, rapidly dipping it, altered the
fifteen on the back of the brief with a couple of touches into
twenty-five, blotted it, and handed it to the young barrister, who
raised his hand not to take the brief, but to decline.
"I am sorry, Mr Swift," he said, "but I have sent back a couple of
briefs this morning marked precisely as you have endorsed that. I am
obliged to decline. Try Mr Norris, or Mr Henrich, on this staircase.
I am sure they will be glad to accept the brief."
The solicitor stared in astonishment, took out his snuff-box, put it
back again, and then exclaimed sharply--
"But I want _you_, sir, you."
"Then," said Luke, smiling, "I am afraid you will have to double the fee
upon the brief, Mr Swift. So much work has come to me of late, that I
have been compelled to make that my fee."
"And with a refresher, sir?" said the solicitor, dropping the
patronising air for one of increased respect.
"And with a refresher, sir," replied the young barrister.
Mr Swift glanced from him to the brief he had been studying and back.
"Why, you are not in Regina _versus_ Finlayson, sir?" he said. "Morley
and Shorter told me that they had given the brief to some one, endorsed
fifty."
"I am the humble individual, Mr Swift," said Luke, who in his calm,
grave way seemed to be amused.
Without another word the solicitor snatched up the quill, dipped it, and
dashing out the twenty-live guineas, rapidly wrote above it "50 _gs_."
"There, sir," he said, blotting it with a bang upon the writing-table,
"we must have you, sir. We want to have you, Mr Ross. You will take
this for us--it's for the prosecution, sir,--a most important case. It
is, really, sir."
"It is astonishing how often the case is most important in the eyes of
the firm of solicitors, and how very ordinary it turns out, Mr Swift,
when it comes into court. But there, Mr Swift, I'll do my best for
your client," and he rose.
The solicitor took the hint, and picked up his hat and blue bag.
"Thank you, Mr Ross; thank you, sir. I am very, very glad. Our first
brief, Mr Ross. The first, sir, of many. Good morning."
He shook hands with a look of the most profound veneration for the
eminent young legal light, whose brilliancy was beginning to be
discussed a good deal, both in and out of court.
"Good morning, Mr Swift," said Lake. "I'll try and get you a verdict."
"You will, sir; I'm sure you will," said the solicitor, bowing as he
reached the door, and then hurrying back. "One moment, Mr Ross--a word
from an old limb of the law, sir. You are a young man, and not above
listening to advice."
"Certainly not," said Luke, smiling, "if it be good."
"'Tis good, sir. Take it. Do away with that boy, and have a quiet,
elderly clerk, sir. Gives dignity to your office. Good morning."
He nodded this time, and shut the door after him, carefully opened the
baize portal, and passed through that, to change his whole aspect as he
found a very tall, thin, cadaverous-looking man, in glossy black, and
with a heavy gold eyeglass swinging outside his buttoned-up surtout.
The countenance of the tall, thin man changed a little, too; but they
shook hands warmly.
"Won't do, Hampton, if you've come about the Esdaile case," he said.
"Never you mind what I've come about," said the tall man, with asperity.
"Oh, I don't, my dear sir, for we've got Ross for the prosecution."
"Con--Tut, tut, tut. Oh, hang it, Swift, this is too bad."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the solicitor.
"But, look here, honour bright?"
"Honour bright, my dear sir. Go and ask him."
"I'll take your word, Swift. Give me a pinch of snuff. What, have you
endorsed the brief, eh?"
The solicitor whispered.
"Have you, though? Well, I should have done the same. It will be silk
one of these days."
"Safe, sir, safe," said the other; and they went out together, just as a
cab stopped at the end of the narrow lane, and, looking very thin and
old, and dry, but bright and active still, old Michael Ross stepped out;
and then, with a very shabby, long old carpet bag in one hand, and a
baggy green umbrella, with staghorn handle, in the other, trotted down
the incline into the Temple till he reached the staircase, at the foot
of which, on one of the door-posts, was painted a column of names.
"Hah!" said the old man, smiling, as he set down his bag, and balanced a
clumsy pair of glasses on his nose, holding them up with one hand.
"This is it. Number nine. Ground floor, Mr Sergeant Towle; Mr
Barnard, Q.C. First floor, Mr Ross."
"Hah!" he muttered, with a chuckle, "first floor, Mr Ross. I wonder
whether he's at home.
"No," he ejaculated. "That's wrong. Should be, `I wonder whether he's
in court.'"
The old man stopped short in the entry, with the door leading to Mr
Sergeant Towle's chambers before, and that leading to the chambers of
Mr Barnard, Q.C., behind, and drew forth his washed-out and faded red
cotton handkerchief.
"I wonder whether he'll be glad to see me," he said. "I'm only a
shabby-looking old fellow, and I dare say I've brought the smell of the
tan-pits with me; and they tell me my son is getting to be quite a
famous lawyer--quite the gentleman, too. Ah, it's a great change--a
great change. And I didn't tell him I was coming; and p'raps it isn't
right to take him so by surprise. He mightn't like it."
The old man rubbed his damp fingers on his handkerchief, and looked
about him in a troubled, helpless way.
"I feel always so mazed-like in this noisy London," he said, weakly;
"and if he was hurt about my coming it would about break my heart, that
it would."
The handkerchief was on its way up to his eyes, where the weak tears
were gathering, when there was the sound of voices in the chambers of
Mr Sergeant Towle, and, snatching up his bag, the old man trotted,
pretty nimbly, up the stone stairs to the first floor, where, upon the
pale drab door, there was the legend, "Mr Ross."
"Mr Ross," said the old man, chuckling to himself. "Mr Ross. That's
my son. God bless him! My son; and I'd have given a hundred golden
pounds if my dear old wife had been alive, and could have stood here and
seen his name writ large and famous on a door in London town like that."
He stood admiring it for some minutes, and then hesitated, as if
overcome by the importance of his son; but at last he raised the big
umbrella, and tapped gently with the staghorn beak.
It was a very modest knock, and it was not answered, so at the end of
five minutes he knocked again.
This time Mr Richard Dixie--Dicky Dix, as he was familiarly called--
verified the words of Mr Swift, the solicitor (Cripple and Swift, of
Gresham-street), by staring hard at the shabby-looking little old man
and his bag, and then coming a little way out to stare at the doorpost,
to the surprise of old Ross.
"It ain't broke," said the boy.
"What isn't broke, sir?" said the old man, humbly.
That `sir' was like so much nerve to one who did not need it; and,
turning sharply to the old man, he gave another glance at the shabby
bag.
"Then what do you want to come a banging at the door with your old
umbrelly for?"
"I didn't see the bell, sir," said the old man, humbly. "Is--is your
master in?"
"Got anything to sell?" said the boy, sharply.
"To sell, sir? Yes; a good deal. The market's been very bad lately.
Is your master, Mr Ross, in?"
"No, he ain't," said the boy, sharply. "Don't want any. Take your bag
somewhere else. We gets ours at the stationer's."
The old man stood aghast, for the boy gave his bag a kick and shut the
door to sharply, without another word.
"He's a quick, sharp boy," said the old man; "very impudent though. A
regular London boy; and Luke's out. Well, well, well, I've come a long
way to see him, and I can wait," and without another word, the old man
seated himself patiently at the foot of the next flight of stairs,
placing his bag beside him, and his green umbrella across his knees.
PART THREE, CHAPTER TWO.
IN TROUBLE.
"Sage? What--down-stairs?" cried Mrs Portlock. "Don't say they're in
trouble again, Joseph."
"Why not?" said the Churchwarden, slowly. "Come along down, and make
the poor girl some warm tea. She's been travelling all night, and has
brought the two little ones with her."
"I'll be down directly," said Mrs Portlock; "but what is the matter?"
"Trouble, trouble, trouble," said the Churchwarden, slowly. "Hang the
laws. I'd give something if I could take her away from him, and keep
her at home, children and all. It would come a deal cheaper, old lady."
"Oh, but you are too hard on him, Joseph, indeed you are. Cyril is
very, very fond of her and his children."
"Bah! I never knew him fond of anything but himself, and what money he
could get."
"There, if you are in that kind of temper, Joseph, it is of no use for
me to speak to you. I'll be down directly; but won't Sage come up?"
"No, I've made her lie down on the sofa by the fire. She's worn out,
and the little ones are fast asleep. I've told the girls to hurry on
the breakfast."
"But how foolish of her to travel in the night. How did they come from
the station?"
"A man brought them in a cart. Poor things! they are half perished."
"Dear, dear, dear, dear me," said Mrs Portlock, hastily dressing.
"What troubles there are in this world."
"Yes, if people make 'em."
"But what is wrong with Cyril?"
"Oh, nothing particular," said the Churchwarden, bitterly, "only he's in
trouble again."
"In trouble?"
"Yes, in trouble. Don't shout about it and frighten the poor girl
more."
"But what does it mean?"
"Oh, some trouble over old Walker's affairs. Sage says she is sure he
is innocent. Heaven knows I hope he is."
"But what made her come down?"
"What made her come down, old lady? Why, what was the poor wench to do,
a woman with a couple of little children? There, it seems a sin to say
so, but it's a blessing the others died."
"Oh, for shame, Joseph!" cried Mrs Portlock, whose trembling old
fingers were in great trouble over various strings.
"I don't care," said the Churchwarden, whose hair was white now, but who
looked as sturdy and well as ever; "I wish she had never seen the
scoundrel."
"Joseph, if you talk like that, you'll break the poor girl's heart."
"I'm not going to talk to her like that, but I suppose I may to you.
Here have they been married close upon twelve years, and what have they
been but twelve years of misery?"
"There has been a deal of trouble certainly," sighed Mrs Portlock.
"What time is it now?"
"Half-past six. Make haste. He was held to be all that was steady and
right at that Government appointment, and six months after his marriage
they kicked him out."
"But Sage always said, dear, that they behaved very ill to Cyril."
"Of course she did, and she believed it, poor lass; but if half that I
heard of him was true, I'd have kicked him out at the end of three
months instead of six."
"It's very, very shocking," sighed Mrs Portlock, getting something in a
knot.
"Then he gets his mother's money; poor soul, she'd have sold herself for
that boy."
"Yes; she's very, very fond of him."
"There was enough for them to have lived in comfort to the end of their
days, if he hadn't bet and squandered the property all away."
"I'm afraid he was a little reckless," sighed Mrs Portlock.
"Reckless? He was mad. Then, when it was gone, it was money, money,
money: never a month passing but there was a letter from poor Sage,
begging for money."
"But she couldn't help it, dear."
"Think I don't know that," cried the Churchwarden, striding to and fro.
"He forced her to write, of course; and we sent it, but not for him. If
it hadn't been for her and the bairns, not a penny of my hard savings
would he ever have seen."
"But he has been better lately."
"Better? Ha, ha, ha! So it seems. Wait till we know all. Five
thousand pounds gone in that wine merchant's business."
"Well, but, Joseph, dear, you would have left it to them after we were
dead. Wasn't it better to give it to them at once?"
"Yes, if it was for their good," said the Churchwarden. "What is it?
Four years ago, and Mallow said, `No,'--I remember his words as well as
if it were only yesterday--`No,' he said, `I think we've done enough.
My wife's money has all gone to him, and I will not impoverish myself
further. I think it is your turn, now.'"
"Well, Joseph," said Mrs Portlock, who had nearly arrived at the stage
of dressing that calls for a cap, "that was only fair."
"Oh, yes, it was fair enough; and I wouldn't have grudged it if Cyril
had been like other men. Five thousand pounds hard savings I paid down
that he might go into partnership with old Walker in that wine trade."
"Well, and I'm sure they seem to have done well for some time, Joseph;
and see what a nice present of wine Cyril sent you every Christmas.
Yes, for five Christmas presents, Joseph."
"Every one of which cost me a thousand pounds, old lady, and the
interest. Dear presents--dear presents."
"But he was getting on well, Joseph, and he seemed so steady; and I'm
sure he was very fond of Sage."
"Fond of Sage!" cried the old farmer, bitterly. "Don't tell me. How
can a man be fond of his wife when he spends every penny he can get on
himself, and then turns the woman he swore to protect into a
begging-letter writer?"
"But what does it all mean? Only the other day, dear," said Mrs
Portlock, whose hands trembled, and who seemed sadly agitated, "we heard
that old Mr Walker had died, and I thought it meant that now Cyril
would have the business all to himself."
"Yes, and he has had it all to himself," said the Churchwarden,
bitterly. "But come down, and speak gently to her, poor darling. Let's
do all we can to make the best of things."
The Churchwarden had let the angry excitement escape in the presence of
his wife, and there was a notable change in his manner as he softly
followed her down into the old parlour, where a bonny fire was blazing,
and Sage Mallow had changed her position to the easy-chair, so that her
little ones might enjoy the comfort of the broad old sofa, drawn, as it
was, before the glow.
They were fast asleep, the two pretty little girls, with their tangled
hair, in a close embrace, and warmly covered with a great rug, while
their mother lay back in the chair, looking twenty years older than on
the day she accompanied Cyril Mallow to the church. Her face was
pinched and pale, and about her lips there was that strange compression
that tells of suffering, weariness, and an aching heart.
A sigh broke involuntarily from the Churchwarden's breast, as with
tender solicitude he went down on one knee, and drew a shawl over the
sleeping mother's arms.
It was softly done, but Sage started into wakefulness, and then, seeing
who was there, her dilate and frightened eyes softened with tears as she
threw her arms round his neck, and hid her face in his breast, sobbing
hysterically, but in a low, weary way.
"Oh, uncle, uncle!"
"My poor bairn, my dear bairn," he whispered, drawing her closer to his
breast, and softly caressing her hair. "There, there, there, don't cry,
don't cry. As long as there's a roof at Kilby, and we're alive, there's
a home for you, my darling, and the little ones. So come, come, come,
cheer up!"
"But my husband," she said, wildly, as she looked up, and, for the first
time, saw that Mrs Portlock was present. "Oh, auntie, auntie," she
wailed, almost in a whisper, as she cast an anxious glance at the
sleeping children, "I'm in such trouble, and such grief. What shall I
do?"
She quitted her uncle's embrace now, to lay her head, with the weariness
of a sick child, upon the old lady's breast.
"There, there," whispered her aunt, with all the sharp jerkiness of
manner gone. "Cheer up a bit, and well see what's to be done. You did
quite right to come down. Uncle and I will take care of you and the
bairns."
"But I must go back directly," said Sage, sitting up and smoothing her
hair. "I came down to ask uncle and Mr Mallow to help us, but Mr
Mallow is so angry with Cyril that I am almost afraid to go."
"Oh, I'll go and have a talk to him, my darling," said the Churchwarden;
"and we'll see if we can't set things a bit right. Ah, that's better,"
he cried, as one of the maids entered with a hot cup of tea. "There, my
dear, drink that. Don't wait, Anne."
The girl, who was staring open-mouthed, left the room, and, after some
persuasion, Sage drank the tea.
"I want to tell you, uncle," she cried, after holding her hands for a
few moments to her temples, as if her head was confused, and her
thoughts wandering away. "I want to tell you all, but I seem to be
hearing the rattle of the train in my head, and jolting over the road in
that cart, with the children crying with the cold."
"But they are fast asleep, and comfortable now, my girl," said the
Churchwarden, soothingly. "Suppose you have a nap, and tell us all your
trouble later on."
"No, no," she cried, "I must tell you now, for I want to get back to
Cyril."
She stared about so wildly that the Churchwarden and his wife exchanged
glances.
"Is Cyril at home, then?" said Portlock, as if to help her regain the
current of her thoughts.
"Home?" she cried. "No: we have no home. Everything has been seized
and sold; and we have been changing about from lodging to lodging, for
Cyril did not wish to be seen."
"Not wish to be seen?"
"No, uncle, dear. He said the failure of the firm was so painful to him
since Mr Walker's death; and that the representatives of the poor old
man had forced the estate into bankruptcy, and were behaving very badly
to him."
"Humph!"
"People have behaved so very, very cruelly to him, and set about such
dreadful stories; but you will not believe them, dear? He is my
husband, and he has been very, very unfortunate."
"Very, my dear," said her uncle, drily.
"He has tried so hard," cried Sage, excitedly, "and fought so bravely to
make a fortune; but the world has always been against him, do what he
would."
"Hah, yes," said the Churchwarden, with a sigh. "But if people would be
content with a good living, and not want to make fortunes, what trouble
would be saved."
"Oh, don't: pray don't you turn against him, uncle, dear," sobbed Sage,
piteously.
"No, my child," said the Churchwarden, gazing tenderly in her sad, thin
face. "I shall not turn against him for your sake. But you had better
tell me all. You say he is in trouble, but innocent?"
She gazed wildly from one to the other.
"I dare not," she moaned, as she covered her face with her hands, and
shuddered.
"Dare not?"
"Yes, I dare," she cried, proudly throwing up her head. "It is not
true. Cyril has his faults, but it is a cruel invention of spiteful
enemies. It is a lie."
She stood up proudly defiant, ready to fight the world on her husband's
behalf, and seemed half angry with her uncle's want of enthusiasm as he
said, quietly--
"Tell me then, my dear. What do they say?"
"That he has committed forgery, and robbed poor old Mr Walker, who,
they say, died of a broken heart at the disgrace of the failure."
"And where is Cyril, now?" said the Churchwarden, whose forehead had
grown full of deeper lines.
"Oh, uncle," Sage cried, throwing herself upon her knees, and shuddering
as she covered her face with her hands. "He was sitting with me last
night, and--Oh, I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it," she wailed--"the
police came. They said it was a warrant, and--oh, uncle, help me, pray
help me, for I have but you to cling to. My husband is in prison now.
What shall I do?"
PART THREE, CHAPTER THREE.
LUKE ROSS HEARS NEWS.
Old Michael Ross sat very patiently outside his son's chambers, watching
the door, and finding enough satisfaction in reading over the name, `Mr
Ross,' again and again.
"It's not a grand place to look at," he said to himself; "but they tell
me he's growing quite a big man. I read for myself what he says to the
judges in court sometimes; and it's a very great thing for my son to be
allowed to talk to them."
Then he had to move to allow some one to pass up, and soon after he had
again to move for some one to pass down, and each time he rose those who
passed looked keenly at the countrified old gentleman, with his carpet
bag and umbrella, but no one spoke.
"I did see how many people there are in London," said the old man to
himself. "Three millions, I think it was; and yet what a strange dull
place it is, and how lonesome a man can feel. Ah!" he said, sadly, "if
my son was to be vexed because I have come up, and not be glad to see
me, I think I should seem to be all alone in the world."
Just then the door opened, and the little clerk came out with a felt hat
stuck very much on one side of his head.
He started as he saw the old man seated patiently waiting, and after
closing the door he said, sharply--
"Now then, old chap, what are you stopping for?"
"I was waiting to see my--to see Mr Ross," said the old man, who seemed
quite humbled by the greatness of his son.
"Didn't I tell you he wasn't at home?" said the boy.
"Yes, sir; and I was going to wait till he returned."
"It's of no use to wait; he don't want to see you."
"Do you think not?" said the old man, humbly.
"I'm sure he don't. What have you got to sell?"
"Skins, sir, skins, principally sheep," said the tanner, respectfully.
"Well, look here: just you be off. The governor buys all his skins when
he wants 'em at the law stationers, but he hardly ever uses one. It's
the solicitors who do that. Now then, off you go."
Just then the door opened, and a well-known voice called "Dick" loudly,
the speaker coming out on to the stone landing, and then starting with
surprise.
"Why, father!" he exclaimed. "You here? I am glad to see you. Really,
I _am_ glad to _see_ you."
The grave, stern way of speaking was gone, and it was Luke Ross of a
dozen years before who was shaking the old man by the hands, and then
patting him affectionately on the shoulders, the old man dropping
umbrella and bag, and the tears starting to his weak old eyes, as he saw
his son's genuine pleasure at the encounter.
"Come along in, father," continued Luke.
"Here, Dick, pick up those things and bring them in."
Dick screwed up his face and stared.
"I--I'll pick them up, Luke, my boy," quavered the old man, glancing at
the young clerk.
"No, no; he'll bring them in, father," said Luke, drawing the old man
into the office and into his private room, where he thrust him into the
most comfortable chair, and then stood over him smiling with pleasure,
seeming as if he could hardly make enough of the little, shrunken old
man.
"Just come up, I suppose?" cried Luke.
"Yes, my boy, yes," said old Michael, wiping his eyes; "but I've been
sitting out there on the stairs these two hours."
"Sitting out there! Why didn't you ring?"
"I did knock, my boy, and that lad of yours said you were out, and told
me to go away; and if I had known you were in all the time, my boy, I
should have gone away thinking you didn't want to see your old father.
Did you tell him to say you were out, Luke?"
"The young scoundrel! no," cried Luke.
"I'm afraid he's a very wicked boy, then," piped the old man, "a very
wicked boy. But are you glad to see me again, Luke?"
"Glad to see you, my dear old father? Why, yes, yes, you know I am.
Come, come, come, or you'll make me weak too."
"Ye-ye--yes, my boy, it is weak," quavered the old fellow, wiping his
eyes hastily; "but I'm getting very old now, Luke. I was a middle-aged
man when I married your dear mother, and I'm seventy-nine now, and not
so strong as I was, and--and I got fancying as I came up that now you
had grown to be such a great man you wouldn't want to see such a shabby
old fellow as I am at your chambers."
"For shame, father!" cried Luke, reproachfully. "What cause have I ever
given you for thinking that?"
"None at all, my boy, none at all. God bless you! You're a good lad,
and I'm very proud of you, Luke, very proud of you, and--and I am so
glad to see you again. Luke, my boy," he said, rising, and his
tremulous old hands played caressingly about his son's shoulders, "I'm a
very old fellow now, and I dare say this is the last time I shall come
to town."
"Oh, no, no, no, father, you'll make plenty of journeys up yet."
"No, my boy, no," said the old fellow, calmly; and he shook his head.
"It can't be; my next journey may be the long one, never to come back
again, my boy."
"Oh, father, come, come," cried Luke, "don't talk like that."
"Why not, my boy?" said the old man, smiling; "it must come to that
soon, and it never seems to trouble me now; but, Luke, my boy, would
you--would you mind this once if--if I--if I--you were a little boy
once, Luke, and I have always been so proud of you, and though you--you
have grown to be such a great man, you seem only my boy still, and I
should like to once more before I die."
"Like to what, father?" cried the young man, smiling at his elder's
affectionate earnestness.
"I should like to kiss you, my boy--for the last time," faltered the old
man, humbly.
"My dear old father!"
It was all that was heard save a muffled sob, as Luke strained the old
man to his breast, and position--the present--all was forgotten, as
father and son stood there feeling as if five-and-twenty years had
dropped away.
"Now," said Luke, as the old man, with a happy smile upon his face,
resumed his chair, the younger half seating himself upon the
writing-table before him. "Now then, father," said Luke, merrily, "am I
glad to see you?"
"Yes, yes, my boy, I know you are;" and the old man took one of the
delicate white hands in his, and gazed round the room. "I like your new
chambers, my boy. Much better than the old ones. The furniture's very
nice; but you never wrote to your poor old father for fifty or a hundred
pounds to buy it," he said, reproachfully.
"There was no need, father," said Luke, smiling. "I am making a good
deal of money now."
"Are you though? I'm glad of it. You ought to: you're so clever; but
you never come down, my boy."
Luke's brow clouded.
"I haven't the heart, father," he said, after a pause. "Come and see me
instead; and if I don't write so often as I should, it is really because
I spend so much time in study and hard work."
"Yes, of course, my boy, so you must. But--but you haven't asked me why
I came up."
"To see me, of course," said Luke.
"Well, yes, my boy, I did; but you--you haven't the heart to come down?"
Luke shook his head.
"Do you--do you think,"--the old man held his son's hand in both his
own, and looked timidly in his face, "do you think about her still, my
boy?"
"Every day, father," said the young man, sternly. "I always shall."
"Yes, yes, my boy. That is why I came up. I came to tell you, my boy:
she's in very great trouble."
"Trouble!" said Luke, quickly; and his voice sounded hoarse and
strange--"again?"
"Yes, yes, my boy. I knew you would like to know."
Luke snatched his hand away, and paced up and down the room several
times before stopping in front of the old man once more. "Has--has she
been down, father?"
"Yes, my boy, she came down with her two little girls."
"Did you see her?" said Luke, hoarsely. "Yes, my boy. I had to go to
Churchwarden Portlock about some skins, and he took me into the room
where she was, and she shook hands. Poor girl, poor girl, she's strange
and changed."
"Changed, father?"
"Yes; old and careworn, and as if she'd suffered a deal of trouble."
Luke Ross's head went down upon his breast, and his voice was almost
inaudible as he said--
"What is her trouble now?"
"You have heard nothing, then, my boy?"
"No, father, nothing."
"Not that the wine merchant's business has all come to bankruptcy?"
"No, father; but I am not surprised. He will always be a beggar. That
is her trouble, then. She is back home?"
"Oh, no, my boy; she is in London. She would not leave her husband.
Churchwarden Portlock came up with her, for it is a terrible trouble
this time."
"Indeed, father! Why?"
"They say he has committed forgery, my boy, and done no end of ill,
and--and--"
"And what, father?" cried Lake, whose eyes were flashing with eagerness.
"He has been cast into prison, my boy, and they say it is a terribly bad
case."
PART THREE, CHAPTER FOUR.
AN IMPORTANT BRIEF.
Luke Ross sat on the edge of his table for a few minutes gazing into
vacancy, and at times it was with a look akin to triumph that he
pondered upon the fall of the man who had been his one enemy--him who
had seemed to turn the whole current of his life.
But as the old man watched his countenance, a sadder, softer mood came
over it, and he said, as he turned once more to meet his father's eyes--
"Poor girl! It is terrible, indeed."
"Very, very terrible, my boy; and they say poor Mrs Mallow is dying.
Surely our poor parson has much to bear--much, indeed, to bear."
There was a few minutes' silence, and then Luke turned to his father,
and his lips moved to speak, but no words came for a time. At last he
said--
"Do you know where Mrs Cyril Mallow is staying, father?"
"Yes, my boy. Portlock told me, and asked me to go and see them if I
came up."
"Go, then, father, and if you can help him, do so. I cannot go, but
you--you could. Help Mr Portlock if you can, and come to me for what
you require. Poor girl," he added, to himself, "what a fate it is.
Poor girl--poor girl!"
"I--I didn't think you would take on about it quite so much, my boy; but
I thought I ought to tell you about it all."
"Yes, yes, father; it was quite right. I am glad you came up."
"It's--it's all about money, my boy, that Cyril Mallow has got into
trouble."
"Yes, father, I suppose so," said Luke, whose thoughts were evidently in
another direction.
"I liked Sage Portlock--I always did like her, my boy; and as you are
getting on so well, and don't want the money I've scraped up for you, I
wouldn't mind helping her in her trouble."
"It's very good of you, father," said the young man, smiling sadly.
"But it would be like pouring money into a well if her husband gets hold
of it."
"If it is a case such as you describe, father," said Luke, thoughtfully,
"I doubt whether money would be of much good."
The old man looked very anxiously at his son, even with a kind of awe,
as if he were afraid of him.
"I don't like to ask him," he muttered, "I don't like to ask him;" and
he took out his old faded handkerchief and began nervously wiping his
hands upon it, till Luke, in his abstraction, turned his eyes upon him
with a vacant look that gradually became intense, as his father grew
more nervous and troubled of mien.
As the old man shrank and avoided the gaze which drew him back, as it
were, to look appealingly in the stern, searching eyes of his son, Luke
spoke to him with the sharpness of one trying to master an evading
witness, so that the old man started as the young barrister exclaimed--
"What is it, father? You are keeping something back."
"I--I hardly liked to say it, my boy. Don't be angry with me."
"Angry with you! What nonsense, father. But speak out. What is it?
You want to say something to me."
"Ye-es, my boy, I do. But give me your hand, and don't speak so sharp
and angrily to me. I'm--I'm getting old and nervous now, and a very
little seems to upset me. I don't even like to walk amongst the
tan-pits now, where I used to run without being a bit afraid. Thank
you, my boy, thank you," he continued, nervously, as Luke caught and
held his hand.
"It's a way I have of speaking, father," he said. "Angry? With you?
Why my dear father, how could I be?"
"I--I don't know, my boy; but you promise me that you won't be angry?"
"Not a bit, father," cried Luke, with assumed cheeriness. "There, dad,
I promise you I won't even be cross if you have been and married a young
wife."
"Me? Married a young wife? Ha! ha! ha! That's very funny of you, my
boy, very funny; but I haven't done that, Luke; I haven't done that. I
married at eight-and-thirty, Luke, and once was enough. But you won't
be angry?"
"No, no, not a bit. Now come, confess. What is it? I hope you haven't
been investing in some shaky company."
"Oh no, my boy, not I. My bit of money has all been put in land, every
hundred I could spare out of the business. But you said, my boy, you--
you wanted to help Mrs Cyril."
Luke's countenance changed again, but he nodded, and said hastily--
"Yes, father, of course. What can I do?"
"She--she said--"
"Who? Mrs Cyril Mallow?"
"Yes, my boy," said the old man, clinging to him. "Mrs Cyril, she--she
asked me to come and see you."
"Sage--Mrs Mallow did?" cried Luke, sharply.
"You promised me, my boy, that you would not be cross with me," quavered
the old man.
"No, no, father, I am not cross, but you startled me by your words. Did
she tell you to come to me?"
"Yes, my boy, she--she's sadly altered, Luke, and so sweet and so
humble. She wanted to go down on her knees to me, my boy, but I
wouldn't let her."
"Tell me all, father," cried Luke. "Why are you keeping this back?"
"I--I daren't tell you, my boy, at first; I dare not, indeed."
"Tell me now, quickly."
"She told me to come to you, my boy; she said she had heard what a great
counsel you had become."
Luke made an impatient movement.
"And she said that she had no one to appeal to in her sore distress."
"I am not her friend," said Luke, coldly.
"But you will be, my boy, when I tell you that, sobbing bitterly, she
asked me to come to you, and if you had one spark of feeling for her
left, to try and save her husband."
"She bade you come and say this, father?" cried Luke, with the beads of
perspiration standing upon his brow.
"Yes, my son, for the sake of old times when you were girl and boy
together."
Luke drew his hand away, and leaping from the edge of the table where he
had been sitting, began to pace the room once more, while the old man
sat rubbing his hands up and down his knees and gazing at him aghast.
Just then there was a sharp knock, and the boy entered.
"Engaged," said Luke, angrily. "I can see no one;" and the boy
disappeared as if in alarm.
"I'm very, very sorry, my boy," faltered old Michael; "but--"
Luke stopped before him in his hurried walk.
"Tell me again, father. Did Sage Mallow say those words?"
"Yes, my boy, almost word for word. She said she was in despair, that
money could not help her, she wanted some one to save her husband."
"Not to help her," said Luke, bitterly, "but to save that man."
"Yes, my boy. It's very shocking, for I'm afraid he's a dreadful scamp;
but you know what women are."
"Yes," said Luke, with a laugh that startled his father, "I know what
women are."
"The bigger scamp a man is the more they hold by him. Perhaps it's
quite right, but it's very shocking."
"Help her to save him," muttered Luke. "I can't do it. I can--not do
it."
The old man had now rolled his handkerchief up into a ball, and was
pressing it and kneading it between his hands, as he gazed helplessly in
his son's face.
"I think if she had seen you, and asked you herself, you would have done
it, Luke, my boy. She said that she believed you could save her
husband, and that if he was condemned--"
"I tell you if he were ten times condemned," cried Luke, "I could not do
it, father. It is madness to ask me, of all men, to fight on his
behalf."
"He--he did behave very badly to you, my boy. He's a bad one, I'm
afraid; but he is that poor creatures husband."
"The only enemy I ever had, and you ask me to save him. It is not in
human nature to do it. Why do you come and ask me such a thing?"
"You said you would not be angry with me, Luke; and she begged of me so
hard, for the sake of the very old times, she said; and then she broke
down, and said that if anything happened to her husband she should die."
Luke walked to the window, and stood gazing out at the narrow lane
below, with a great struggle going on in his breast. In his heart there
was still left so tender an affection for Sage that he was ready to save
her. For her sake he had given no thought to another of her sex,
eschewing society, and devoting himself constantly to his profession;
and now that his father had raised up before him, as it were, the face
of the suffering wife, piteous and appealing, as she sent to him her
message, asking, for the sake of old days, that he would come to her
help, he felt that he must go--must devote his powers to saving the man
she loved.
But it was impossible. He could not. He would not. He was but a man,
he told himself, and this would be the work of an angel. No; he hated
Cyril Mallow intensely, as the man who had robbed him of all he held
dear, at the same time that he despised him in his honourable heart as a
contemptible scoundrel who would sacrifice any one to gain his own ends.
Luke was not surprised to hear of Cyril being in fresh difficulties; he
was ready, also, to believe that he was guilty, and he was asked to
become this man's advocate, to bring to bear his twelve years' hard
study and self-denial to try and save him from some richly-merited
punishment. It was too much.
As he stood there, gazing out of the window, he seemed to see Cyril's
mocking, handsome, triumphant face, as he made him also his slave--one
of those whose duty it was to try and drag him from the slough as soon
as ever he thought proper to step in--one of those who were to lie down,
that he might plant his foot upon the bended neck, step out into safety,
and leave the helper in the mire.
On the other hand, strive to exclude it as he would, there was Sage's
appealing face, not the sweet girlish countenance he knew, but a face
chastened by suffering, full of trust in him as in one who could and
would help her in this supreme time of her trouble.
He fought against it, but in vain. He told himself that he should be
mad to take up such a cause; that men would sneer and say evil things of
him--that it was from no disinterested motives that he had done this
thing; but there was ever the appealing face, the soft pleading eyes
seeming to say to him, "I was weak and foolish, as well as cruel, in
choosing as I did, but I humble myself now into the very dust, and ask
you to forgive me and come to my help."
Her very words seemed to say as much, and a strange thrill of triumph
ran through him, as his eyes flashed, and for the moment he gloried in
Cyril Mallow's disgrace.
He put away the thoughts, though, as a shame unto him, and folding his
arms, he tried to master himself, to get his mental balance once again,
for it was terribly disturbed by the strange access of emotion that he
felt.
No, he said, when he went down to Kilby Farm on that
never-to-be-forgotten day, Sage Portlock's life and his own, that had
run on together for so long, had suddenly diverged, and they had been
growing farther and farther apart ever since. He could not do this
thing. It was impossible. It was a fresh act of cruelty on Sage's
part, and come what might he would not degrade himself by fighting Cyril
Mallow's cause, only afterwards, if he saved him, to reap the
scoundrel's contempt.
"And I should deserve it," he said, half aloud.
"Yes, my boy," quavered old Michael, eagerly, as he caught his son's
words and interpreted them to his own wishes. "God bless you, my boy, I
knew you would, and she said she knew your good and generous heart, and
that night by night she would teach her little ones to love and
reverence your name, as they knelt down and prayed for God's blessing on
him who saved their father from disgrace."
Luke Ross had opened his lips to stop his father's enthusiastic words,
when his excited fancy pictured before him the soft, sweet, careworn
face of Sage, his old love, bending over her innocent children, and
teaching them, as she held their little clasped hands, to join his name
in their trusting prayers, and he was conquered.
He dared not turn, for his face was convulsed, but, sinking sidewise
into a chair, he rested his head upon his arm, and, hearing his father
approach, motioned with the hand that was free, for him to keep back.
But the old man did not heed the sign. He came forward and laid his
trembling hand upon his son's head.
"God bless you, my noble boy!" he said, fervently. "I knew you would."
Neither spoke then for a time, and when Luke raised his face once more,
it was very pale, as if he were exhausted by the fight.
"Why, father," he said, cheerfully, "I'm behaving very badly to you.
You must want something to eat."
"No, my boy, I had something before I came in, for fear I should put you
out. I don't want anything else."
"Till dinner-time, father," said Luke, smiling. "You and I will dine
together and enjoy ourselves."
"But that poor woman, Luke?"
"We'll settle all that, father, after dinner. You shall give me the
address, and I will either get a fresh solicitor to take the matter up
or consult with theirs."
"But won't you fight for them, my boy?"
"To be sure I will, father, and do my best. But you don't understand
these matters; an attorney has to draw up the brief."
"Of course, yes, of course, my boy."
"He brings it to me like this," said Luke, taking up the one he had been
studying, "with all the principal points of the case neatly written out,
as a sort of history, giving me the particulars necessary, so that I can
master them in a quick, concise way."
"Yes, I see, my boy."
"A good lawyer will, in consultation with his client, clear away all
superfluous matter, leaving nothing but what is necessary for the
counsel to know."
"Yes, my sod, same as we first of all get rid of the refuse from a
skin."
"Exactly, father," said Luke, smiling; "for clients often think matters
of great moment that are worthless in a court of law."
"To be sure, yes; people will talk too much, my boy, I know," said the
old man. "Why, Lukey, how I should like to hear you laying down the law
in your wig and gown, my boy. How you must give it to 'em. I've read
about you in the newspaper. Old Mr Mallow always brings one to me when
he sees your name in, and shakes hands with me; and the tears come in
the old fellow's eyes as he says to me with a sigh, `Ah, Mr Ross, I
wish I had had such a son.'"
"Why, father," said Luke, smiling, and seeming himself once more, "it is
a good job that you don't live near me."
"Don't say that, my boy," said the old man, looking quite aghast. "I--I
was thinking how nice it would be if I could get nearer to you."
"You'd spoil me with flattery," said Luke.
"Nay, nay, my boy," said the old man, seriously. "I never told you
aught but the truth, and if I saw a fault I'd out with it directly."
"You always were the best of fathers," cried Luke, clasping the old
man's hand.
"And--and I thank God, my boy, for His blessings on my old age,"
quavered the old man, with the weak tears in his eyes--"You were always
the best of sons."
They sat hand clasped in hand for a few moments, and then the old man
said softly--
"God will bless you for your goodness to that poor woman, my boy. I
know it has been a hard fight, but you have won. It is heaping coals of
fire on your enemy's head to do good to him, and maybe afterwards Cyril
Mallow may repent. But, Luke, my boy," he cried, cheerfully, "I'm a
stupid old man, only you must humour me."
"How, father?"
"Let me see you, just for a minute, in your wig and gown."
"Nonsense, father!"
"But I should like it, my boy." Luke rose to humour him, putting on wig
and gown, and making the old man rub his hands with gratification as he
gazed at the clear, intelligent face, with its deeply set, searching
eyes.
"I'll be bound to say you puzzle and frighten some of them, my boy,"
said the old man. "And that's a brief, is it?"
"Yes, father," said Luke, smiling down on the old man, so full of
childlike joy.
"Ah, yes," said the old man, putting on a pair of broad-rimmed
spectacles, and then reading--"Jones _versus_ Lancaster."
"Hah! yes, nicely written; better than this fifty gs. What does that
mean?"
"Fifty guineas, father."
"Indeed! And which was it, Jones or Lancaster, who stole the fifty
guineas?"
"Neither, father. That is a common-pleas case of some importance, and
the fifty guineas is my fee."
"Your fee?" cried the old man. "You don't mean to tell me that you get
fifty-two pounds ten shillings, my boy, for your fee?"
"Yes, father, I do now," said his son, smiling.
"Bless my soul! Why, Luke, you ought to grow rich."
"Well, I suppose so, father; but I don't much care. I should like to
grow famous, and make myself a name."
"And you will, my boy--you will," cried the old man, as Luke slipped off
his legal uniform, and replaced the wig and gown.
"Time proves all things, father."
"And may I look? I won't tell. Is this another brief?"
"Yes, father; I get plenty now."
"But--but--you are not paid fifty guineas a-piece for them, my boy?"
"Yes, father, I take nothing below that fee now, and even then I get
more than I can undertake."
The old man threw himself back in his chair, and, after a struggle, drew
out of his trousers pocket a reddish canvas bag, and untied the string
around the neck.
"Why, what are you going to do, father?" said Luke.
"I'm going to pay my son the fee for the brief in Cyril Mallow's case,
and I'm as proud as proud to have it to do."
"No, no," cried Luke; "that must not be."
"But I will, my boy, I will," said the old man.
"No, no, father, I could not take it. You would hurt me if you pressed
it."
"But I've plenty of money, my boy."
"So have I, father, and I could not do my duty in that defence if it was
a matter of payment. If I take that brief," he said, solemnly, "my
payment is Sage Mallow's thanks and her children's prayers."
The old man sat thinking for a few moments.
"You are right, my boy, you are right," he said, replacing his bag.
"And, of course, all I have is yours. But you will take the brief,
Luke, my boy?"
"Yes, father, if I can I will."
"Then you will," cried the old man, joyously.
"Hah, let's look at that. It's a big one, Luke;" and he picked up, with
his eyes sparkling with paternal pride, the brief brought in that
morning by Mr Swift. "Hah! this has been altered," said the old man.
"It was twenty-five guineas, and that's crossed out, and they've written
fifty. I'll bet twopence they offered you twenty-five first, and you
wouldn't take it."
"Quite right, father," said Luke, upon whom his father's enjoyment came
like so much sunshine in a dull life.
"Quite right, my boy, quite right. Let 'em know your value. You're a
man of business, Luke. Now, what's this, my boy?"
"I really don't know, father, only that it is for the prosecution in an
important criminal case."
"Criminal case, eh? And you haven't studied it, then?"
"Not yet. I was going to finish Jones _versus_ Lancaster first."
"And this is _re_ Esdaile, eh? What's that? Esdaile, Esdaile, and Co.
Why, that's the name of the wine-merchants' firm where Cyril Mallow was
partner."
"_What_?" roared Luke.
He snatched the brief from his father's hand, tore it open, and as the
leaves fluttered in his trembling hand he sank back in a chair, looking
like one who had received some deadly blow.
PART THREE, CHAPTER FIVE.
A HARD DUTY.
Old Michael Ross was at his son's side on the instant.
"Are you ill, my boy? Tell me what it is! You frighten me, Luke!--you
frighten me!"
"I shall be better directly, father," panted Luke, with a strange look
in his face.
"But you are ill. Let me send for brandy."
"No, no; I am better now! It is nothing. But tell me, father, I
thought that man became partner with a Mr Walker?"
"Yes, my boy; I believe it was a very old firm, trading as Esdaile and
Co. No other names appeared."
"Good heavens!" muttered Luke, who kept glancing at the brief and
turning over its leaves.
"Why, Luke!" exclaimed the old man, excitedly, as the state of the case
flashed upon him. "You are not already engaged in this affair?"
"I am, father," he said, with a strange pallor gathering in his face.
"I have undertaken the prosecution of Cyril Mallow on behalf, it seems,
of Mr Walker's executors, and I shall have to try and get him
convicted."
Father and son sat gazing blankly in each other's eyes, thinking of the
future; and as Luke pondered on the position into which he had been
thrown by fate, he saw that he should be, as it were, the hand of
Nemesis standing ready to strike the heartless spendthrift down--that he
was to be his own avenger of the wrongs that he had suffered from his
enemy, and that no greater triumph could be his than that of pointing
out, step by step, to the jury, the wrongdoings of this man, who would
be standing in the felon's dock quailing before him, looking in his eyes
for mercy, but finding none.
He shuddered at the picture, for soon fresh faces appeared there--that
of Sage, standing with supplicating hands and with her tearful, dilated
eyes, seeming to ask him for pity for her children's sake. Then he saw
the white-haired rector gazing at him piteously, and the suffering
invalided mother who worshipped her son. Both were there, asking him
what they had done that he should seek to convict him they loved.
He looked up, and saw that his father was watching him with troubled
face.
"This--this is very terrible, my boy," he said. "I ought to have been
sooner. But--but--must you take that side?"
"I have promised, father. I would give anything to have been under the
same promise to you. But I cannot, I will not stand up and accuse Cyril
Mallow. Strive how I would, I should fight my hardest to get a verdict
against him, and I could not afterwards bear the thought. I will get
off taking this brief. Stay here while I go out."
He took his hat, and was driven to his solicitors, where he had an
interview with Mr Swift, and proposed that that gentleman should retire
the brief from his hands.
Mr Swift smiled, and shook his head.
"No, Mr Ross," he said; "I have given you your price, and after a chat
with my partner, he agreed that I had done right. The matter is
settled, sir! I could not hear of such a thing."
Luke was in no mood to argue with him then, but went back to his
chambers, dined with his father, and then sat up half the night studying
the brief, not with the idea of being for the prosecution, but so as to
know how Cyril Mallow stood.
It was a long brief, and terrible in its array of charges against Sage's
husband. As he read on, Luke found that the executors of Cyril's
partner, the late Mr Walker, were determined upon punishing him who had
wrought his ruin. The wine business had been a good and very lucrative
one until Mr Walker had been tempted into taking a partner, whose
capital had not been needed, the object really being to find a junior
who would relieve the senior from the greater part of the anxiety and
work.
Cyril then had been received into the partnership, and a great deal of
the management had after a short time been left to him, a position of
which he took advantage to gamble upon the Stock Exchange with the large
sums of money passing through their hands, with just such success as
might have been expected, and the discovery that Cyril had involved the
firm in bankruptcy broke Mr Walker's heart, the old man dying within a
week of the schedule being filed.
Worse was behind: the executors charged Cyril with having forged his
partner's name to bills, whereon he had raised money, signing not merely
the name of the firm, but his own and his partner's name, upon the
strength of which money had been advanced by two bill discounters, both
of whom were eager to have him punished.
In short, the more Luke Ross studied, the more he found that the black
roll of iniquity was unfolding itself, so that at last he threw down the
brief, heartsick with disgust and misery, feeling as he did that if
half, nay, a tithe of that which was charged against Cyril were true, no
matter who conducted prosecution or defence, the jury was certain to
convict him of downright forgery and swindling, and seven or ten years'
penal servitude would be his sentence.
It needed no dull, cheerless morning for Luke's spirits to be at the
lowest ebb when he met his father at breakfast, the old man looking very
weak, careworn, and troubled, as they sat over the barely-tasted meal.
Luke hardly spoke, but sat there thinking that he would make a fresh
appeal to Mr Swift to relieve him of so terrible a charge, and
expecting each moment that his father would again implore him to retire
from the prosecution and take up the defence. At last the old man
spoke.
"I've been lying awake all night, thinking about that, my boy," he said,
"and I'm very, very sorry."
"Father," said Luke, "it seems almost more than one can bear."
"I said to myself that my boy was too noble not to forgive one who had
done wrong to him in the past, and I said, too, that it would be a fine
thing for him to show people how he was ready to go and fight on his old
rival's behalf."
"And I will, father, or retire from the case altogether," said Luke,
eagerly.
"No, my son, no," said the old man; "I have not long to live, and I
should not like that little time to be embittered by the thought that I
had urged my son to do a dishonourable act."
"Oh, no," cried Luke, "I will press them, and they will let me retire."
"But if they refused again, my boy, it would be dishonourable to draw
back after you had promised to do your best. No, my boy, there is the
finger of God in it all, and you must go on. Poor girl, poor girl! it
will be terrible for her, but we cannot fight against such things."
"But I could not plead my cause with her eyes reproaching me," said
Luke, half to himself.
"But you must, my boy," cried the old man. "I lay awake all last night,
Luke, and I prayed humbly for guidance to do what was right, and it
seemed to me that the good counsel came."
"Father!" exclaimed Luke, gazing in the old man's face.
"It will be painful, my boy, but we must not shrink from our duty
because it is a difficult one to perform. I am a weak old fellow, and
very ignorant, but I know that here my son will be a minister of justice
against a bad and wicked man. For he is a bad--a wicked man, my boy,
who has stopped at nothing to gratify his own evil ends."
"But how can I proceed against him, father?"
"Because it is your duty; and, feeling what you do against him, you will
guard your heart lest you should strike too hard; and it is better so.
Luke, my boy, you will be just; while, if another man prosecutes him, he
will see in him only the forger and the cheat, and fight his best to get
him condemned."
It was true, and Luke sat back thinking.
"Yesterday, my boy, I prayed you to undertake this man's defence; I
withdraw it all now: take back every word, and I will go and tell poor
Sage Mallow why."
"No, no, father," cried Luke; "if I cannot defend, neither will I
prosecute."
"You must, my boy--you have given your word. If you drew back now I
should feel that it would go worse against this man."
"But mine, father, should not be the hand to strike him down," cried
Luke.
"We are not our own masters here, my boy," said the old man, speaking in
a low and reverent tone. "My Luke has never shrunk from his duty yet,
and never will."
Luke sank back in silence, and for a long time no word was spoken. Then
he suddenly rose and rang the bell.
"See if Mr Serjeant Towle is in," he said to the boy, and upon the
report being received that the serjeant was within, Luke descended and
had ten minutes' conversation with that great legal luminary, who, after
a little consideration, said, as Luke rose to go--
"Well, yes, Ross, I will, if it's only for the sake of giving you a good
thrashing. You are going on too fast, and a little check will do you
good. If I take the brief I shall get him off. Send his solicitors to
me."
Five minutes later Luke was with his father.
"Go and see Mrs Mallow at once, father," he said, "and bid her tell her
solicitors to wait upon Mr Serjeant Towle."
"Yes, my boy--Mr Serjeant Towle," said the old man, obediently.
"He will require an enormous fee, father, which you will pay."
"Yes, my boy, of course. Is--is he a great man?"
"One of the leading counsel at the bar; and if Cyril Mallow can be got
off, Serjeant Towle is the man for the task."
"But, my boy--" began the old man.
"Don't hesitate, father, but go," cried Luke; and the old man hurried
off.
PART THREE, CHAPTER SIX.
THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION.
It was a strange stroke of fate that, in spite of several attempts to
evade the duty, circumstances so arranged themselves that Luke Ross
found himself literally forced, for his reputation's sake, to go on with
his obnoxious task, and at last the day of trial came.
Luke had passed a sleepless night, and he entered the court, feeling
excited, and as if all before him was a kind of dream.
For a few minutes he had not sufficient self-possession even to look
round the well of the building; and it was some time before he ventured
to scan the part that would be occupied by the spectators. Here,
however, for the time being, his eyes remained riveted, as a choking
sensation attacked him, for, seated beside the sturdy, well-remembered
figure of the Churchwarden, was a careworn, youngish woman, so sadly
altered that Luke hardly recognised her as the Sage whose features were
so firmly printed on his memory.
She evidently did not see him, but was watching the jury-box, and
listening to some remarks made to her from time to time by her uncle.
Luke turned over his brief, and tried to think of what he could do to be
perfectly just, and yet spare the husband of the suffering woman before
him, and at whom he gazed furtively from time to time.
He saw her as through a mist, gazing wildly at the judge, and then at
the portly form and florid face of Serjeant Towle, who was now engaged
in an eager conversation with his junior; and the sight of the famous
legal luminary for the moment cleared away the misty dreaminess of the
scene. Luke's pulses began to throb, and he felt like one about to
enter the arena for a struggle. He had had many legal battles before,
from out of which, through his quickness in seizing upon damaging
points, he had come with flying colours; but he had never before been
opposed to so powerful an adversary as the Serjeant, and, for the
moment, a strong desire to commence the encounter came over him.
But this passed off, and the dreamy sensation came back, as he sat
gazing at Sage, thinking of their old childish days together, their
walks in the wold woodlands, flower-gathering, nutting, or staining
their hands with blackberries; of the many times when he climbed the
orchard trees to throw down the ripening pears to Sage, who spread her
pinafore to receive them. In these dreamy thoughts the very sunshine
and sleepy atmosphere of the old place came back, and the sensation of
remembrance of the old and happy days became a painful emotion.
It must be a dream, he felt. That could not be Sage seated there by the
sturdy, portly, grey-haired man, her uncle. Even old Michael Ross
seemed to be terribly changed, making it impossible that the little,
thin, withered man seated behind Churchwarden Portlock could be the
quick, brisk tradesman of the past.
"Was it all true?" Luke kept asking himself, "or was it, after all, but
a dream?"
Cyril Mallow's was the first case to be taken that morning, and the
preliminaries were soon settled; but all the while the dreaminess of the
scene seemed to Luke to be on the increase. He tried to bring his
thoughts back from the past, but it was impossible; and when Mr Swift
the solicitor who had instructed him spoke, the words seemed to be a
confused murmur from far away.
Then the clerk of arraigns called the prisoner's name, and as Cyril
Mallow was placed at the bar, and Luke gazed at the face that had grown
coarse and common-looking in the past twelve years, the dreaminess
increased still more.
Luke was conscious of rising to bow to the court and say, "I am for the
prosecution, my lord"; and heard the deep, rolling, sonorous voice of
Mr Serjeant Towle reply, "I am for the defence, my lord"; and then
Luke's eyes rested upon Sage, who for the first time recognised him, and
was now leaning forward, looking at him with wild and starting eyes that
seemed to implore him to spare her husband, for the sake of their
childhood's days; and her look fascinated him so that he could not tear
his gaze away.
It must be a dream, or else he was ill, for there was now a strange
singing in his ears, as well as the misty appearance before his eyes,
through which he could see nothing but Sage Portlock, as his heart
persisted in calling her still.
"Was he to go on?" he asked himself, "to go wading on through this
terrible nightmare, planting sting after sting in that tender breast, or
should he give it up at once?"
He wanted to--he strove to speak, and say, "My lord, I give up this
prosecution," but his lips would not utter the words. For he was in a
nightmare-like dream, and no longer a free agent.
And yet his nerves were so overstrung that he was acutely conscious of
the slightest sound in the court, as he rose now, the observed of all
present.
He heard the soft, subdued rustle made by people settling in their
places for the long trial; the catching, hysterical sigh uttered by the
prisoner's wife; and a quick, faint cough, or clearing of the throat, as
the prisoner leaned against the dock, and sought to get rid of an
unpleasant, nervous contraction of the throat.
Luke stood like one turned to stone, his eyes now fixed on vacancy, his
brief grasped in his hand, and his face deadly pale. The moment had
arrived for him to commence the prosecution, but his thoughts were back
at Lawford, and, like a rapid panorama, there passed before his eyes the
old schoolhouses, and the figure of the bright, clever young mistress in
the midst of her pupils, while he seemed to hear their merry voices as
they darted out into the sunshine, dismissed for the day.
Then he was studying for the mastership, and was back at the training
college. That was not the judge seated on his left, but the
vice-principal, and those were not spectators and reporters ranged
there, tier above tier, with open books and ready pencils, but
fellow-students; and he was down before them, at the great black board,
helpless and ashamed, for the judge--no, it was the vice-principal--had
called him down from his seat, and said--"In any right-angled triangle
the square of the sides subtending the right angle is equal to the
square of the sides containing the right angle. Prove it."
Prove it! And that forty-seventh problem of the first book of Euclid
that he knew so well had gone, as it were, right out of his memory,
leaving but a blank.
There was a faint buzz and rustle amongst the students as it seemed to
him in this waking nightmare, and the vice-principal said--"We are all
ready, Mr Ross." Still not a word would come. Some of the students
would be, he knew, pitying him, not knowing how soon their own turn
might come, while others he felt would be triumphant, being jealous of
his bygone success.
He knew that book so well, too; and somehow Sage Portlock had obtained a
seat amongst the students, and was waiting to hear him demonstrate the
problem, drawing it with a piece of chalk on the black board, and
showing how the angle ABC was equal to the angle DEF, and so on, and so
on.
"We are all ready, Mr Ross," came from the vice-principal again. No,
it was from the judge, and it was not the theatre at Saint Chrysostom's,
but the court at the Old Bailey, where he was to prosecute Cyril Mallow,
his old rival, the husband of the woman he had loved, for forgery and
fraud; and his throat was dry, his tongue clave to the roof of his
mouth, and his thoughts were wandering away.
And yet his senses were painfully acute to all that passed. He knew
that Serjeant Towle had chuckled fatly, after fixing his great double
eyeglass to gaze at him. Then, as distinctly as if the words were
uttered in his ear, he heard one of the briefless whisper--
"He has lost his nerve."
There was an increase in the buzzing noise, and an usher called out
loudly, "Silence."
"Ross, Mr Ross! For heaven's sake go on," whispered Mr Swift,
excitedly; and Luke felt a twitching at his gown.
But he could not master himself. It was still all like a nightmare,
when he turned his eyes slowly on the judge, but in a rapt, vacant way,
for the old gentleman said kindly--"I am afraid you are unwell, Mr
Ross." Luke was conscious of bowing slightly, and just then a
hysterical sigh from the overwrought breast of Sage struck upon his ear,
and he was awake once more.
The incident had been most painful, and to a man the legal gentlemen had
considered it a complete breakdown of one of the most promising of the
young legal stars, those who had been so far disappointed seeing in the
downfall of a rival a chance for themselves.
But the next minute all that had passed was looked upon as a slight
eccentricity on the part of a rising man. Mr Swift, who had begun to
grind his teeth with annoyance, thrust both his hands into his great
blue bag, as if in search of papers, but so as to be able to conceal the
gratified rub he was giving them, as he heard Luke Ross in a clear
incisive tone, and with a gravity of mien and bearing beyond his years,
state the case for the prosecution in a speech that lasted quite a
couple of hours. Too long, some said, but it was so masterly in its
perspicuity, and dealt so thoroughly with the whole case, that it was
finally declared to be the very perfection of forensic eloquence.
How his lips gave utterance to the speech Luke himself hardly knew, but
with his father's words upon his duty ringing in his ears, he carried
out that duty as if he had neither feeling against the prisoner, nor
desire to save him from his well-merited fate. With the strict
impartiality of one holding the scales of justice poised in a hand that
never varied in its firmness for an instant, he laid bare Cyril Mallow's
career as partner in the wine firm, and showed forth as black an
instance of ingratitude, fraud, and swindling as one man could have
gathered into so short a space.
There was a murmur of applause as Luke took his seat. Then his junior
called the first witness, and the trial dragged its slow length along;
while Luke sat, feeling that Sage would never forgive him for the words
that he had said.
Witness after witness, examination and cross-examination, till the
prosecution gave way to the defence, and Serjeant Towle shuffled his
gown over his shoulders, got his wig awry, and fought the desperate
cause with all his might.
But all in vain. The judge summed up dead against the prisoner,
alluding forcibly to the kindly consideration of the prosecution; and
after stigmatising the career of Cyril Mallow as one of the basest,
blackest ingratitude, and a new example of the degradation to which
gambling would lead an educated man, he left the case in the jury's
hands, these gentlemen retiring for a few minutes, and then returning
with a verdict of guilty.
Sentence, fourteen years' penal servitude. And, once more, as in a
dream, Luke saw Cyril Mallow's blotched face gazing at him full of
malice, and a look of deadly hatred in his eyes, before he was hurried
away.
He was then conscious of Mr Swift saying something to him full of
praise, and of Serjeant Towle leaning forward to shake hands, as he
whispered--
"You beat me, Ross, thoroughly. We'll be on the same side next time."
But the dreaminess was once more closing in Luke Ross as with a mist,
and in it he saw a pale, agonised face gazing reproachfully in his
direction as its owner was being helped out of the court.
"God help me!" muttered Luke. "I must have been mad. She will think it
was revenge, when I would sooner have died than given her pain."
PART THREE, CHAPTER SEVEN.
AFTER THE SENTENCE.
There was nothing farther to detain Luke Ross, but he remained in his
seat for some time, studying the next case people said, but only that he
might dream on in peace, for in the midst of the business of the next
trial he found repose. No one spoke to him, and he seemed by degrees to
be able to condense his thoughts upon the past.
And there he sat, trying to examine himself searchingly, probing his
every thought as he sought for condemnatory matter against himself.
He felt as if he had been acting all day under some strange influence,
moved by a power that was not his own, and that, as the instrument in
other hands, he had been employed to punish Cyril Mallow.
"They will all join in condemning me," he thought, "and henceforth I
shall go through life branded as one who hounded down his enemy almost
to the death."
At length he raised his eyes, and they rested upon the little, thin,
wistful countenance of his father, and there was a feeling of bitter
reproach for his neglect of one who had travelled all the previous day
so as to be present at the trial.
He made a sign to him as he rose, and the old man joined him in the
robing-room, where Mr Dick eyed him askance as he relieved his master
of his wig and gown; and then they returned to the chambers, where Luke
threw himself into a chair, and gazed helplessly at his father, till the
old man laid a hand, almost apologetically, upon his son's arm.
"You are tired out, my boy. Come with me, and let us go somewhere and
dine."
"After I have disgraced myself like this, father?" groaned Luke. "Are
you not ashamed of such a son?"
"Ashamed? Disgraced? My boy, what do you mean? I never felt so proud
of you before. It was grand!"
"Proud!" cried Luke, passionately, "when I seem to have stooped to the
lowest form of cowardly retaliation. A rival who made himself my enemy
is grovelling in the mire, and I, instead of going to him like an
honourable, magnanimous man, to raise him up and let him begin a better
life, have planted my heel upon his face, and crushed him lower into the
slough."
"It was your duty, my boy, and you did that duty," cried the old man,
quickly. "I will not hear you speak like that."
"And Sage--his wife," groaned Luke, not hearing, apparently, his
father's words. "Father, the memory of my old love for her has clung to
me ever. I have been true to that memory, loving still the sweet,
bright girl I knew before that man came between us like a black shadow
and clouded the sunshine of my life."
He stopped, and let his head rest upon his hand.
"My love for her has never failed, father, but is as fresh and bright
now as it was upon the day when I came up here to town ready for the
long struggle I felt that I should have before I could seek her for my
wife. That love, I tell you, is as fresh and warm now as it was that
day, but it has always been the love of one suddenly cut off from me--
the love of one I looked upon as dead. For that evening, when I met
them in the Kilby lane, Sage Portlock died to me, and the days I mourned
were as for one who had passed away."
"My boy, my boy, I know. He did come between you, and seemed to blight
your life, but he is punished now."
"Punished? No," said Luke, excitedly; "it is not the man I have
punished, but his wife. Father, that sorrowing, reproachful look she
directed at me this morning will cling to me to my dying day. I cannot
bear it. I feel as if the memory would drive me mad."
He started up, and paced the room in an agony of mind that alarmed old
Michael, who sought in vain to utter soothing words.
At last, as if recalled to himself by the feeling that he was neglecting
the trembling old man before him, Luke made an effort to master the
thoughts that troubled him, and they were about to go out together, when
the boy announced two visitors, and Luke shrank back unnerved once more,
on finding that they were the Reverend Eli Mallow and his old
Churchwarden.
"I did not know his father was in town," said Luke, in a low voice.
"Yes, my boy, he sat back, poor fellow. He looks very old and weak,"
said Michael Ross, in a quiet patronising way. "He is a good deal
broken, my boy. Speak kindly to him, pray."
"What do they want?" said Luke. "Oh, father, what have I done that fate
should serve me such an ugly turn?"
"Your duty, my boy, your duty," whispered the old man; and the next
minute the visitors were in the room, finding, as they entered, that old
Michael was holding his son's arm in a tender, proud way that seemed to
fix the old Rector's eyes.
He was, indeed, old-looking and broken; sadly changed from the fine,
handsome, greyheaded man that Luke knew so well.
"I met Mr Mallow almost at your door," said Portlock, in his bluff,
firm way. "We did not come together, but we both wanted to call."
Luke pointed to chairs, but the old Rector remained standing, gazing
reproachfully at Luke.
"Yes, I wanted to see you," he said; "I wanted to see and speak to the
man I taught when he was a boy, and in whom I took a great deal of
pride. I was proud to see you progress, Luke Ross. I used to read and
show the reports to your father when I saw them, for I said Luke Ross is
a credit to our town."
"And you said so to me often, Mr Mallow," cried old Michael.
"I did--I did," said the Rector; "and to-day in court I asked myself
what I had ever done to this man that he should strike me such a blow."
"Be just, for heaven's sake, Mr Mallow," cried Luke. "I did not seek
the task I have fulfilled to-day."
"And I said to myself, as I saw my only son dragged away by his gaolers,
`I will go and curse this man--this cold-blooded wretch who could thus
triumph over us.' I said I would show him what he has done--bruised my
heart, driven a suffering woman nearly mad, and made two little innocent
children worse than orphans."
"Mr Mallow, is this justice?" groaned Luke.
"No," said the old man, softly. "I said it in mine haste, and as I
hurried here mine anger passed away; the scales dropped from mine eyes,
and I knew that it was no work of thine. Truly, as Eli's sons of old
brought heaviness to their father's heart, so have my poor sons to mine;
and, Michael Ross," he cried, holding out his trembling hands, "I was so
proud of that boy--so proud. He was his mother's idol, and, bad as he
would be at times, he was always good to her. Can you wonder that she
loved him? Oh, God help me! my boy--my boy!"
"It has been an agony to me ever since the brief was forced upon me, Mr
Mallow," said Luke, taking the old man's hand. "Believe me, I could not
help this duty I had to do."
"God bless you, Luke Ross!" said the old man, feebly. "Like Balaam of
old, I came to curse, and I stop to bless. If I have anything to
forgive, I forgive you, as I hope to be forgiven. You have been a good
son. Michael Ross, you have never known what it is to feel as I do now.
But I must go back; I must go back to her at home. She waits to know
the worst, and this last blow will kill her, gentlemen--my poor,
suffering angel of a wife--it will be her death."
"Will you not come and see Sage first?" said Portlock, with rough
sympathy.
"No, no, I think not. The sight of my sad face would do her harm. I'll
get home. Keep her with you, Portlock. God bless her!--a true, sweet
wife. We came like a blight to her, Portlock. Luke Ross, I ought not
to have allowed it, but I thought it was for the best--that it would
reform my boy. My life has been all mistakes, and I long now to lie
down and sleep. Keep her with you, Portlock, and teach her and her
little ones to forget us all."
He tottered to the door to go, but Luke stepped forward.
"He is not fit to go alone," he cried. "Mr Portlock, what is to be
done?"
"I must take him home," he replied, sadly. "I'd better take them all
home, but I have a message for you."
"For me?" cried Luke. "Not from Mrs Cyril?"
"Yes, from Sage. She wants to see you."
"I could not bear it," cried Luke. "Heavens, man! have I not been
reproached enough?"
"It is not to reproach you, I think, Luke Ross," said Portlock, softly.
"She bade me say to thee, `Come to me, if you have any sympathy for my
piteous case.'"
PART THREE, CHAPTER EIGHT.
A FORLORN HOPE.
"Come to me if you have any sympathy for my piteous case!"
Sympathy! In his bitter state of self-reproach, he would have done
anything to serve her. He felt that he could forgive Cyril Mallow, aid
him in any way, even to compromising himself by helping him to escape.
But he shrank from meeting Sage: he felt that he could not meet her
reproachful eyes.
"You will come and see her?" said the Churchwarden. "Ah, my lad, if we
could have looked into the future!"
His voice shook a little as he spoke, but he seemed to nerve himself,
and said again--"You will come and see her?"
"If it will be any good. Yes," said Luke, slowly; and they proceeded
together to the hotel, where Sage was staying with her uncle, in one of
the streets leading out of the Strand.
The old Rector was so broken of spirit that he allowed Portlock to lead
him like a child, and, satisfied with the assurance that to-morrow he
should return home, he sat down in the room set apart, with old Michael
Ross, while, in obedience to a sign from Portlock, Luke followed him to
a room a few doors away.
The place was almost in shadow, for the gas had not been lit, and as
Luke entered, with his heart beating fast, a dark figure rose from an
easy-chair by the fire, and tottered towards the old farmer, evidently
not seeing Luke, who stayed back just within the door.
"He would not come," she cried. "It was cruel of him. I thought he had
a nobler heart, and in all these years would have forgiven me at last."
"Mr Ross is here, Sage," said Portlock, rather sternly. "Shall I leave
you to speak to him alone?"
"No, no," she cried in a hoarse whisper, instead of her former
high-pitched querulous tone. "I cannot--I dare not speak to him alone."
"If forgiveness is needed for the past, Mrs Mallow," said Luke, in a
grave, calm voice, for he had now mastered his emotion, "you have mine
freely given, and with it my true sympathy for your position."
She burst into a passionate fit of weeping, which lasted some minutes,
during which she stood hiding her face on her uncle's breast; then,
recovering herself, she hastily wiped away her tears, and drawing
herself up, stood holding out her hand for Luke to take.
He hesitated for a moment, and then, stepping forward, took it and
raised it to his lips, just touching it with grave respect, and then
letting it fall.
"I wished to say to you, Mr Ross, let the past be as it were dead, all
save our boy and girlhood's days."
"It shall be as you wish," he said, softly.