How the great Don O'Rapley became an usher of the Court of Queen's Bench
and explained the ingenious invention of the round square--how Mr.
Bumpkin took the water and studied character from a penny steamboat.
Some years ago there lived in a little village near Bridgewater a young
man who was the bowler of his village eleven--one of the first roundhand
bowlers in point of time, and by no means the last in point of merit.
Indeed, so great was the local fame of this young man that it produced a
sensation for miles around when it was announced that Don O'Rapley (such
was his name) was going to bowl. All the boys of the village where the
match was to take place were in a state of the utmost excitement to see
the Don. At times it was even suggested that he was unfairly "smugged
in" to play for a village to which he had no pretensions to belong. In
process of time the youth became a man, and by virtue of his cricket
reputation he obtained a post in the Court of Queen's Bench. The
gentleman whom I have referred to as looking with such austerity at Mr.
Bumpkin is that very Don O'Rapley; the requirements of a large family
necessitated his abandonment of a profession which, although more to his
taste, was not sufficiently remunerative to admit of his indulging it
after the birth of his sixth child. But it was certain that he never
lost his love for the relinquished pursuit, as was manifest from his
habit when alone of frequently going through a kind of dumb motion with
his arm as if he were delivering one of his celebrated "twisters." He
had even been seen in a quiet corner of the Court to go through the same
performance in a somewhat modified form. He was once caught by the Judge
in the very act of delivering a ball, but found a ready apology in the
explanation that he had a touch of "rheumatiz" in his right shoulder.
Now I saw in my dream that Don O'Rapley was in earnest conversation with
Horatio, and it was clear Mr. Bumpkin was the subject of it, from the
very marked manner in which the Don and the youth turned occasionally to
look at him. It may be stated that Horatio was the nephew of Don
O'Rapley, and, perhaps, it was partly in consequence of this
relationship, and partly in consequence of what Horatio told him, that
the latter gentleman rose from his seat under the witness-box and came
towards Mr. Bumpkin, shouting as he did so in a very solemn and prolonged
tone, "Si-lence!"
Mr. Bumpkin saw him, and, conscious that he was innocent this time of any
offence for which he could be committed, stood his ground with a bold
front, and firmly held his white beaver with both hands. O'Rapley
contemplated him for a few minutes with an almost affectionate interest.
Bumpkin felt much as a pigeon would under the gaze of an admiring owl.
At last O'Rapley spoke:--
"Why, it's never Mr. Bumpkin, is it?"
"It be a good imitation, sir," said Bumpkin, "and I bean't asheamed of
un."
"Silence!" cried the Don. "You don't remember me, I s'pose?"
"Wall, not rightly, I doan't."
"I dissay you recollect Don O'Rapley, the demon bowler of Bridgewater?"
"I've 'eered tell on 'im," said Bumpkin.
"I'm that man!" said the Don, "and this is my nephew, Mr. Snigger. He
tells me you've got a case comin' on?"
"I be."
"Just step outside," said the Don, "we mustn't talk 'ere." So they went
into Westminster Hall, and the good-natured O'Rapley asked if Mr. Bumpkin
would like to look round, and if so he said he would be happy to show
him, for he was very pleased to see anyone from the scene of his youthful
exploits.
"Thankee, sir--thankee, sir," answered Bumpkin, delighted to find another
"native" among "furriners." "And this 'ere genleman be thy nevvy, sir?"
"He is, and very proud of him I am; he's my sister's son."
"Seems a nice quiet boy," said Mr. Bumpkin. "Now how old might he be?"
"Old," said Mr. O'Rapley, looking deedily at the floor and pressing his
hand to his forehead, "why he'll be seventeen come March."
"Hem! his 'ed be a good deal older nor thic: his 'ed be forty--it's my
way o' thinkin'."
The Don laughed.
"Yes, he has his head screwed on the right way, I think."
"Why that air lad," said Bumpkin, "might make a judge."
O'Rapley laughed and shook his head.
"In old times," said he, "he might ha' made a Lord Chancellor; a man as
was clever had a chance then, but lor' blesh you, Mr. Bumpkin, now-a-days
it's so very different; the raw material is that plentiful in the law
that you can find fifty men as would make rattlin good Lord Chancellors
for one as you could pick out to make a rattlin' good bowler. But come,
we'll have a look round."
So round they looked again, and Mr. Bumpkin was duly impressed with the
array of wigs and the number of books and the solemnity of the judges and
the arguments of counsel, not one word of which was intelligible to him.
Mr. O'Rapley explained everything and pointed out where a judge and jury
tried a case, and then took him into another court where two judges tried
the judge and jury, and very often set them both aside and gave new
trials and altered verdicts and judgments or refused to do so
notwithstanding the elaborate arguments of the most eloquent and
long-winded of learned counsel.
Then the Don asked if Mr. Bumpkin would like to see the Chancery
Judges--to which Mr. Bumpkin answered that "he hadn't much opinion o'
Chancery from all he'd 'eeard, and that when a man got into them there
Cooarts maybe he'd never coome out agin, but he shouldn't mind seein' a
Chancery Judge."
"Well, then," said the distinguished bowler, "now-a-days we needn't go to
Chancery, for they've invented the 'Round Square.'"
Mr. Bumpkin stared. Could so great a man as the O'Rapley be joking? No;
the Don seldom laughed. He was a great admirer of everything relating to
the law, but had a marked prejudice against the new system; and when he
spoke of the "Round Square" he meant, as he afterwards explained, that
confusion of Law and Equity which consists in putting Chancery Judges to
try common law cases and Common Law Judges to unravel the nice twistings
of the elaborate system of Equity; "as though," said he, "you should fuse
the butcher and the baker by getting the former to make bread and the
latter to dress a calf."
Mr. Bumpkin could only stare by way of reply.
"If you want to see Chancery Judges," added the Don, "come to the Old
Bailey!"