It is, as regards views of life and the world, a somewhat narrowing
process to live amongst sympathizers; and it may be assumed as an axiom,
that no people so much minister to a man's littleness as those who pity
him.
Now, when Lady Lendrick separated from Sir William, she carried away
with her a large following of sympathizers. The Chief Baron was well
known; his haughty overbearing temper at the bar, his assuming attitude
in public life, his turn for sarcasm and epigram, had all contributed to
raise up for him a crowd of enemies; and these, if not individually well
disposed to Lady Lendrick, could at least look compassionately on one
whose conjugal fate had been so unfortunate. All _her_ shortcomings were
lost sight of in presence of _his_ enormities, for the Chief Baron's
temper was an Aaron's rod of irascibility, which devoured every other;
and when the verdict was once passed, that “no woman could live with
him,” very few women offered a word in his defence.
It is just possible that if it had not been for this weight in the
opposite scale, Lady Lendrick herself would not have stood so high. Sir
William's faults, however, were accounted to her for righteousness,
and she traded on a very pretty capital in consequence. Surrounded by a
large circle of female friends, she lived in a round of those charitable
dissipations by which some people amuse themselves; and just as dull
children learn their English history through a game, and acquire their
geography through a puzzle, these grown-up children take in their
Christianity by means of deaf and dumb bazaars, balls for blind
institutions, and private theatricals for an orphan asylum. This
devotion, made easy to the lightest disposition, is not, perhaps, a
bad theory,--at least, it does not come amiss to an age which likes to
attack its gravest ills in a playful spirit, to treat consumption with
cough lozenges, and even moderate the excesses of insanity by soft
music. There is another good feature, too, in the practice: it furnishes
occupation and employment to a large floating class which,' for the
interest and comfort of society, it is far better should be engaged in
some pursuit, than left free to the indulgence of censorious tastes and
critical habits. Lady Lendrick lived a sort of monarch amongst
these. She was the patroness of this, the secretary of that, and
the corresponding member of some other society. Never was an active
intelligence more actively occupied; but she liked it all, for she liked
power, and, strange as it may seem, there is in a small way an
exercise of power even in these petty administrations. Loud, bustling,
overbearing, and meddlesome, she went everywhere, and did everything.
The only sustaining hope of those she interfered with was that she was
too capricious to persist in any system of annoyance, and was prone
to forget to-day the eternal truths she had propounded for reverence
yesterday.
I am not sure that she conciliated--I am not sure that she would have
cared for--much personal attachment; but she had what certainly she
did like, a large following of very devoted supporters. All her little
social triumphs--and occasionally she had such--were blazoned abroad by
those people who loved to dwell on the courtly attentions bestowed
upon their favorite, what distinguished person had taken her “down” to
dinner, and the neat compliment that the Viceroy paid her on the taste
of her “tabinet.”
It need scarcely be remarked that the backwater of all this admiration
for Lady Lendrick was a swamping tide of ill-favor for her husband. It
would have been hard to deny him ability and talent. But what had he
made of his ability and talent? The best lawyer of the bar was not even
Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench. The greatest speaker and scholar of
his day was unknown, except in the reminiscences of a few men almost
as old as himself. Was the fault in himself, or was the disqualifying
element of his nature the fact of being an Irishman? For a number of
years the former theory satisfied all the phenomena of the case, and
the restless, impatient disposition--irritable, uncertain, and almost
irresponsible--seemed reason enough to deter the various English
officials who came over from either seeking the counsels or following
the suggestions of the bold Baron of the Exchequer. A change, however,
had come, in pail; induced by certain disparaging articles of the
English press as to the comparative ability of the two countries; and
now it became the fashion to say that had Sir William been born on
the sunnier side of St. George's Channel, and had his triumphs been
displayed at Westminster instead of the Four Courts, there would have
been no limit to the praise of his ability as a lawyer, nor any delay in
according him the highest honors the Crown could bestow.
Men shook their heads, recalled the memorable “curse” recorded by Swift,
and said, “Of course there is no favor for an Irishman.” It is not the
place nor the time to discuss this matter here. I would only say that
a good deal of the misconception which prevails upon it is owing to the
fact that the qualities which win all the suffrages of one country are
held cheaply enough in the other. Plodding unadorned ability, even of
a high order, meets little favor in Ireland, while on the other side
of the Channel Irish quickness is accounted as levity, and the rapid
appreciation of a question without the detail of long labor and thought,
is set down as the lucky hit of a lively but very idle intelligence.
I will not let myself wander away further in this digression, but come
back to my story. Connected with this theory of Irish depreciation, was
the position that but for the land of his birth Sir William would have
been elevated to the peerage.
Of course it was a subject to admit of various modes of telling,
according to the tastes, the opportunities, and the prejudices of the
tellers. The popular version of the story, however, was this: that Sir
William declined to press a claim that could not have been resisted,
on account of the peculiarly retiring, unambitious character of him
who should be his immediate successor. His very profession--adopted
and persisted in, in despite of his father's wish--was a palpable
renunciation of all desire for hereditary honor. As the old Judge said,
“The _Libro d, Oro_ of nobility is not the Pharmacopoeia;” and the
thought of a doctor in the peerage might have cost “Garter” a fit of
apoplexy.
Sir William knew this well,--no man better; but the very difficulties
gave all the zest and all the flavor to the pursuit. He lived, too, in
the hope that some Government official might have bethought him of this
objection, that he might spring on him, tiger-like, and tear him in
fragments.
“Let them but tell me this,” muttered he, “and I will rip up the whole
woof, thread by thread, and trace them! The noble duke whose ancestor
was a Dutch pedler, the illustrious marquess whose great-grandfather was
a smuggler, will have to look to it. Before this cause be called on I
would say to them, better to retain me for the Crown! Ay, sirs, such is
my advice to you.”
While these thoughts agitated Sir William's mind, the matter of them
was giving grave and deep preoccupation to the Viceroy. The Cabinet had
repeatedly pressed upon him the necessity of obtaining the Chief Baron's
retirement from the bench,--a measure the more imperative that while
they wanted to provide for an old adherent, they were equally anxious to
replace him in the House by an abler and readier debater; for so is it,
when dulness stops the way, dulness must be promoted,--just as the most
tumble-down old hackney-coach must pass on before my Lord's carriage can
draw up.
“Pemberton must go up,” said the Viceroy. “He made a horrid mess of that
explanation t' other night in the House. His law was laughed at, and
his logic was worse; he really must go on the bench. Can't you hit upon
something, Balfour? Can you devise nothing respecting the Chief Baron?”
“He 'll take nothing but what you won't give him; I hear he insists on
the peerage.”
“I'd give it, I declare,--I 'd give it to-morrow. As I told the Premier
t' other day, Providence always takes care that these law lords have
rarely successors. They are life peerages and no more; besides, what
does it matter a man more or less in 'the Lords'? The peer without
hereditary rank and fortune is like the officer who has been raised from
the ranks,--he does not dine at mess oftener than he can help it.”
Balfour applauded the illustration, and resolved to use it as his own.
“I say again,” continued his Excellency, “I'd give it, but they won't
agree with me; they are afraid of the English bar,--they dread what the
benchers of Lincoln's Inn would say.”
“They'd only say it for a week or two,” mumbled Balfour.
“So I remarked: you'll have discontent, but it will be passing. Some
newspaper letters will appear, but Themis and Aristides will soon tire,
and if they should not, the world who reads them will tire; and probably
the only man who will remember the event three months after will be the
silversmith who is cresting the covered dishes of the new creation. You
think you can't go and see him, Balfour?”
“Impossible, my Lord, after what occurred between us the last time.”
“I don't take it in that way. I suspect he 'll not bear any malice.
Lawyers are not thin-skinned people; they give and take such hard knocks
that they lose that nice sense of injury other folks are endowed with. I
think you might go.”
“I 'd rather not, my Lord,” said he, shaking his head.
“Try his wife, then.”
“They don't live together. I don't know if they're on speaking terms.”
“So much the better,--she'll know every chink of his armor, and perhaps
tell us where he is vulnerable. Wait a moment. There has been some talk
of a picnic on Dalkey Island. It was to be a mere household affair. What
if you were to invite her?--making of course the explanation that it was
a family party, that no cards had been sent out; in fact, that it was to
be so close a thing the world was never to hear of it.”
“I think the bait would be irresistible, particularly when she found out
that all her own set and dear friends had been passed over.”
“Charge her to secrecy,--of course she'll not keep her word.”
“May I say we 'll come for her? The great mystery will be so perfectly
in keeping with one of the household carriages and your Excellency's
liveries.”
“Won't that be too strong, Balfour?” said the Viceroy, laughing.
“Nothing is too strong, my Lord, in this country. They take their
blunders neat as they do their sherry, and I'm sure that this part of
the arrangement will, in the gossip it will give rise to, be about the
best of the whole exploit.”
“Take your own way, then; only make no such mistake as you made with
the husband. No documents, Balfour,--no documents, I beg;” and with
this warning laughingly given, but by no means so pleasantly taken, his
Excellency went off and left him.