That ancient and incongruous pile which goes by the name of the Castle
in Dublin, and to which Irishmen very generally look as the well from
which all honors and places flow, is not remarkable for either the
splendor or space it affords to the inmates beneath its roof. Upheld
by a great prestige perhaps, as in the case of certain distinguished
people, who affect a humble exterior and very simple belongings, it may
deem that its own transcendent importance has no need of accessories.
Certainly the ugliness of its outside is in noway unbalanced by the
meanness within; and even the very highest of those who claim its
hospitality are lodged in no-princely fashion.
In a corner of the old red brick quadrangle, to the right of the state
entrance, in a small room whose two narrow windows looked into a lane,
sat a very well-dressed young-gentleman at a writing-table. Short, and
disposed to roundness in face as well as figure, Mr. Cholmondely Balfour
scarcely responded in appearance to his imposing name. Nature had not
been as bountiful, perhaps, as Fortune; for while he was rich,
well born, and considerably gifted in abilities, his features were
unmistakably common and vulgar, and all the aids of dress could not
atone for the meanness in his general look. Had he simply accepted his
image as a thing to be quietly borne and submitted to, the case might
not have been so very bad; but he took it as something to be corrected,
changed, and ameliorated, and the result was a perpetual struggle
to make the most ordinary traits and commonplace features appear the
impress of one on whom Nature had written gentleman. It would have been
no easy task to have imposed on him in a question of his duty. He was
the private secretary of the Viceroy, who was his maternal uncle. It
would have been a tough task to have misled or deceived him in any
matter open to his intelligence to examine; but upon this theme there
was not the inventor of a hair-wash, a skin-paste, a whisker-dye, or a
pearl-powder that might not have led him captive. A bishop might have
found difficulty in getting audience of him,--a barber might have
entered unannounced; and while the lieutenant of a county sat waiting in
the antechamber, the tailor, with a new waistcoat pattern, walked
boldly into the august presence. Entering life by that _petite porte_
of politics, an Irish office, he had conceived a very humble estimate
of the people amongst whom he was placed. Regarding his extradition from
Whitehall and its precincts as a sort of probationary banishment, he
felt, however, its necessity; and as naval men are accredited with two
years of service for every one year on the coast of Africa, Mr. Balfour
was aware that a grateful Government could equally recognize the
devotion of him who gave some of the years of his youth to the Fernando
Po of statecraft.
This impression, being rarely personal in its consequences, was not of
much moment; but it was conjoined with a more serious error, which was
to imagine that all rule and governance in Ireland should be carried
on with a Machiavellian subtlety. The people, he had heard, were
quick-witted; he must therefore out-manoeuvre them. Jobbery had been,
he was told, the ruin of Ireland; he would show its inefficiency by
the superior skill with which he could wield its weapon. To be sure
his office was a very minor one, its influence very restricted, but Mr.
Balfour was ambitious; he was a Viceroy's nephew; he had sat for months
in the House, from which he had been turned out on a petition. He had
therefore social advantages to build on, abilities to display, and
wrongs to avenge; and as a man too late for the train speculates during
the day how far on his road he might have been by this time or by that,
so did Mr. Balfour continually keep reminding himself how, but for that
confounded petition, he might now have been a Treasury this or a
Board of Trade that,--a corporal, in fact, in that great army whose
commissioned officers are amongst the highest in Europe.
Let us now present him to our reader, as he lay back in his chair, and
by a hand-bell summoned his messenger.
“I say, Watkins, when Clancey calls about those trousers show him
in, and send some one over to the packet-office about the
phosphorus blacking; you know we are on the last jar of it. If the
Solicitor-General should come--”
“He is here, sir; he has been waiting these twenty minutes. I told him
you were with his Excellency.”
“So I was,--so I always am,” said he, throwing a half-smoked cigar into
the fire. “Admit him.”
A pale, care-worn, anxious-looking man, whose face was not without
traces of annoyance at the length of time he had been kept waiting, now
entered and sat down.
“Just where we were yesterday, Pemberton,” said Balfour, as he rose and
stood with his back to the fire, the tails of his gorgeous dressing-gown
hanging over his arms. “Intractable as he ever was; he won't die, and he
won't resign.”
“His friends say he is perfectly willing to resign if you agree to his
terms.”
“That may be possible; the question is, What are his terms? Have you a
precedent of a Chief Baron being raised to the peerage?”
“It's not, as I understand, the peerage he insists on; he inclines to a
moneyed arrangement.”
“We are too poor, Pemberton,--we are too poor. There's a deep gap in our
customs this quarter. It's reduction we must think of, not outlay.”
“If the changes _are_ to be made,” said the other, with a tone of
impatience, “I certainly ought to be told at once, or I shall have no
time left for my canvass.”
“An Irish borough, Pemberton,--an Irish borough requires so little,”
said Balfour, with a compassionate smile.
“Such is not the opinion over here, sir,” said Pemberton, stiffly; “and
I might even suggest some caution in saying it.”
“Caution is the badge of all our tribe,” said Balfour, with a burlesque
gravity. “By the way, Pemberton, his Excellency is greatly disappointed
at the issue of these Cork trials; why did n't you hang these fellows?”
“Juries can no more be coerced here than in England; they brought them
in not guilty.”
“We know all that, and we ask you why? There certainly was little room
for doubt in the evidence.”
“When you have lived longer in Ireland, Mr. Balfour, you will learn
that there are other considerations in a trial than the testimony of the
witnesses.”
“That's exactly what I said to his Excellency; and I remarked, 'If
Pemberton comes into the House, he must prepare for a sharp attack about
these trials.'”
“And it is exactly to ascertain if I am to enter Parliament that I have
come here to-day,” said the other, angrily.
“Bring me the grateful tidings that the Lord Chief Baron has joined his
illustrious predecessors in that distinguished court, I 'll answer you
in five minutes.”
“Beattie declares he is better this morning. He says that he has in all
probability years of life before him.”
“There 's nothing so hard to kill as a judge, except it be an
archbishop. I believe a sedentary life does it; they say if a fellow
will sit still and never move he may live to any age.”
Pemberton took an impatient turn up and down the room, and then wheeling
about directly in front of Balfour, said, “If his Excellency knew,
perhaps, that I do not want the House of Commons--”
“Not want the House,--not wish to be in Parliament?”
“Certainly not. If I enter the House, it is as a law-officer of the
Crown; personally it is no object to me.”
“I'll not tell him that, Pem. I'll keep your secret safe, for I tell you
frankly it would ruin you to reveal it.”
“It's no secret, sir; you may proclaim it,--you may publish it in the
'Gazette,' But really we are wasting much valuable time here. It is now
two o'clock, and I must go down to Court. I have only to say that if no
arrangement be come to before this time to-morrow--” He stopped short.
Another word might have committed him, but he pulled up in time.
“Well, what then?” asked Balfour, with a half smile.
“I have heard you pride yourself, Mr. Balfour,” said the other,
recovering, “on your skill in nice negotiation; why not try what you
could do with the Chief Baron?”
“Are there women in the family?” said Balfour, caressing his moustache.
“No; only his wife.”
“I 've seen her,” said he, contemptuously.
“He quarrelled with his only son, and has not spoken to him, I believe,
for nigh thirty years, and the poor fellow is struggling on as a country
doctor somewhere in the west.”
“What if we were to propose to do something for him? Men are often not
averse to see those assisted whom their own pride refuses to help.”
“I scarcely suspect you 'll acquire his gratitude that way.”
“We don't want his gratitude, we want his place. I declare I think the
idea a good one. There's a thing now at the Cape, an inspectorship of
something,--Hottentots or hospitals, I forget which. His Excellency
asked to have the gift of it; what if we were to appoint this man?”
“Make the crier of his Court a Commissioner in Chancery, and Baron
Lendrick will be more obliged to you,” said Pem-berton, with a sneer.
“He is about the least forgiving man I ever knew or heard of.”
“Where is this son of his to be found?”
“I saw him yesterday walking with Dr. Beattie. I have no doubt Beattie
knows his address. But let me warn you once more against the inutility
of the step you would take. I doubt if the old Judge would as much as
thank you.”
Balfour turned round to the glass and smiled sweetly at himself, as
though to say that he had heard of some one who knew how to make these
negotiations successful,--a fellow of infinite readiness, a clever
fellow, but withal one whose good looks and distinguished air left even
his talents in the background.
“I think I 'll call and see the Chief Baron myself,” said he. “His
Excellency sends twice a day to inquire, and I 'll take the opportunity
to make him a visit,--that is, if he will receive me.”
“It is doubtful. At all events, let me give you one hint for your
guidance. Neither let drop Mr. Attorney's name nor mine in your
conversation; avoid the mention of any one whose career might be
influenced by the Baron's retirement; and talk of him less as a human
being than as an institution that is destined to endure as long as the
British constitution.”
“I wish it was a woman--if it was only a woman I had to deal with, the
whole affair might be deemed settled.”
“If you should be able to do anything before the mail goes out to-night,
perhaps you will inform me,” said Pem-berton, as he bowed and left
the room. “And these are the men they send over here to administer
the country!” muttered he, as he descended the stairs,--“such are the
intelligences that are to rule Ireland! Was it Voltaire who said
there was nothing so inscrutable in all the ways of Providence as the
miserable smallness of those creatures to whom the destiny of nations
was committed?”
Ruminating over this, he hastened on to a _nisi prius_ case.