When the Government of the day had found that all their efforts to
induce the Chief Baron to retire from the Bench were failures,--when
they saw him firmly decided to accept nothing less than that price which
they would not pay,--with a littleness which, it is but fair to own,
took its origin from Mr. Cholmondely Balfour, they determined to pass
upon him a slight which he could not but feel most painfully.
It happened in this wise. At the time I speak of Ireland was suffering
from one of those spasmodic attacks of rebellion which every now and
then occur through the chronic disaffection of the country, just
as certain eruptions are thrown out over the body to relieve, as is
supposed, some feverish tendencies of the system.
Now, although the native thinks no more of these passing troubles than
would an old Indian of an attack of the “prickly heat,” to the English
mind they always suggest danger, tend to increase the military force of
the kingdom, and bring on in Parliament one of those Irish debates--a
political sham fight--where, though there is a good deal of smoke,
bustle, and confusion, nobody is hurt, nor, if the truth be told, is any
one the better when it is over.
Through such a paroxysm was Ireland now passing. It matters little to
our purpose to give it a specific name, for the Whiteboy or the Rockite,
the Terry-alt, the Ribbonman, or the Fenian are the same; there being
only one character in this dreary drama, however acute Viceroys and
energetic secretaries may affect to think they are “assisting” at the
representation of a perfectly new piece, with new scenery, dresses, and
decorations.
In ordinary disturbances in Ireland, whenever they rose above the
dignity of local mischief, the assistance and sympathy of France was
always used as a sort of menace to England. It was a threat very certain
to irritate, if it did no more. As, however, by course of time, we
grew to form closer relations with France,--to believe, or affect to
believe,--I am not very sure which,--that we had outlived old grudges,
and had become rather ashamed of old rivalries, France could not
be employed as the bugbear it had once been. Fortunately for Irish
rebellion, America was quite prepared to take the vacant post, and with
this immense additional gain, that the use of our own language enabled
our disaffected in the States to revile us with a freedom and a vigor
which, if there be that benefit which is said to exist in “seeing
ourselves as others see us,” ought unquestionably to redound to our
future good.
The present movement had gone so far as to fill the public mind with
terror, and our jails with suspected traitors. To try these men a
special commission had been named by the Government, from which,
contrary to custom, the Chief Baron had been omitted. Nor was this all.
The various newspapers supposed to be organs, or at least advocates, of
the Ministry, kept up a continuous stream of comment on the grave injury
to a country, at a crisis like that then present, to have one of its
chief judicial seats occupied by one whose age and infirmities totally
disabled him from rendering those services which the Crown and the
nation alike had a right to expect from him.
Stories, for the most part untrue, of the Chief Baron's mistakes on
the Bench appeared daily. Imaginary suitors, angry solicitors, and
such-like--the Bar was too dignified to join in the cry--wrote letters
averring this, that, or the other cruel wrong inflicted upon them
through the “senile incapacity of this obstructive and vain old man.”
Never was there a less adroit tactic. Every insult they hurled at him
only suggested a fresh resolve to hold his ground. To attack such a
man was to evoke every spark of vigorous resistance in his nature, to
stimulate energies which nothing short of outrage could awaken, and to
call into activity powers which, in the ordinary course of events, would
have fallen into decline and decay. As he expressed it, “in trying to
extinguish the lamp they have only trimmed the wick.” When, through
Sewell's pernicious counsels, the old Judge determined to convince the
world of his judicial fitness by coming out a young man, dressed in the
latest fashion, and affecting in his gait and manner the last fopperies
of the day, all the reserve which respect for his great abilities
had imposed was thrown aside, and the papers now assailed him with a
ridicule that was downright indecent. The print shops, too, took up the
theme, and the windows were filled with caricatures of every imaginable
degree of absurdity.
There was one man to whom these offensive attacks gave pain only
inferior to what they inflicted on the Chief himself,--this was his
friend Haire. To have lived to see the great object of all his homage
thus treated by an ungrateful country, seemed to him the direst of
all calamities. Over and over did he ponder with himself whether such
depravity of public feeling portended the coming decline of the nation,
and whether such gross forgetfulness of great services was not to be
taken as a sign of approaching dissolution.
It was true that since the Sewells had taken up their residence at
the Priory he had seen but little of his distinguished friend. All the
habits, the hours, and the associations of the house had been changed.
The old butler, who used to receive Haire when he arrived on terms of
humble friendship, telling him in confidence, before he went in, the
temper in which he should find the Judge, what crosses or worries
had recently befallen him, and what themes it might be discreet to
avoid,--he was pensioned off, and in his place a smart Englishman, Mr.
Cheetor, now figured,--a gentleman whose every accent, not to speak of
his dress, would have awed poor Haire into downright subjection. The
large back hall, through which you passed into the garden,--a favorite
stroll of Haire's in olden times,--was now a billiard room, and
generally filled with fine ladies and gentlemen engaged in playing;
the very sight of a lady with a billiard cue, and not impossibly a
cigarette, being shocks to the old man's notions only short of seeing
the fair delinquent led off to the watchhouse. The drowsy quietude of
the place, so grateful after the crush and tumult of a city, was gone;
and there was the clang of a pianoforte, the rattle of the billiard
balls, the loud talk and loud laughter of morning visitors, in its
stead. The quaint old gray liveries were changed for coats of brilliant
claret color. Even to the time-honored glass of brandy-and-water which
welcomed Haire as he walked out from town there was revolution; and
the measure of the old man's discomfiture was complete as the
silvery-tongued butler offered him his choice of hock and seltzer or
claret-cup!
“Does the Chief like all this? Is it possible that at his age these
changes can please him?” muttered Haire, as he sauntered one day
homeward, sad and dispirited; and it would not have been easy to resolve
the question.
There was so much that flattered the old Judge's vanity,--so much that
addressed itself to that consciousness that his years were no barrier to
his sentiments, that into all that went on in life, whatever of new
that men introduced into their ways or habits, he was just as capable of
entering as the youngest amongst them; and this avidity to be behind in
nothing showed itself in the way he would read the sporting papers,
and make himself up in the odds at Newmarket and the last news of the
Cambridge Eleven. It is true, never was there a more ready-money payment
than the admiration he reaped from all this; and enthusiastic cornets
went so far as to lament how the genius that might have done great
things at Doncaster had been buried in a Court of Exchequer. “I wish he
'd tell us who 'll win the Riggles-worth”--“I 'd give a fifty to
know what he thinks of Polly Perkins for the cup,” were the dropping
utterances of mustachioed youths who would have turned away inattentive
on any mention of his triumphs in the Senate or at the Bar.
“I declare, mother,” said Sewell, in one of those morning calls
at Merrion Square in which he kept her alive to the events of the
Priory,--“I declare, mother, if we could get _you_ out of the way, I
think he 'd marry again. He 's uncommonly tender towards one of those
Lascelles girls, nieces of the Viceroy, and I am certain he would
propose for her.”
“I'm sure I'm very sorry I should be an obstacle to him, especially as
it prevents him from crowning the whole folly of his life.”
“She's a great horsewoman, and he has given me a commission to get him a
saddle-horse to ride with her.”
“Which of course you will not.”
“Which of course I will, though. I'm going about it now. He has been
very intractable about stable matters hitherto; the utmost we could do
was to exchange the old long-tailed coach-horses, and get rid of that
vile old chariot; but if we get him once launched into riding hacks, we
'll have something to mount us.”
“And when his granddaughter returns, will not all go back to the former
state?”
“First of all, she's not coming. There's a split in that quarter, and in
all likelihood an irremediable one.”
“How so? What has she done?”
“She has fallen in love with a young fellow as poor as herself; and her
brother Tom has written to the Chief to know if he sees any reason why
they should not marry. The very idea of an act of such insubordination
as falling in love of course outraged him. He took my wife into his
counsels besides, and she, it would appear, gave a most unfavorable
character of the suitor,--said he was a gambler,--and we all know what a
hopeless thing that is!--that his family had thrown him off; that he had
gone through the whole of his patrimony, and was, in short, just as bad
'a lot' as could well be found.”
“She was quite right to say so,” burst in Lady Lendrick. “I really do
not see how she could have done otherwise.”
“Perhaps not; the only possible objection was, that there was no truth
in it all.”
“Not true!”
“Not a word of it, except what relates to his quarrel with his family.
As for the rest, he is pretty much like other fellows of his age and
time of life. He has done the sort of things they all do, and hitherto
has come fairly enough out of them.”
“But what motive could she have had for blackening him?”
“Ask her, mother,” said he, with a grin of devilish
spite-fulness,--“just ask her; and even if she won't tell you, your
woman's wit will find out the reason without her aid.”
“I declare, Dudley, you are too bad,--too bad,” said she, coloring with
anger as she spoke.
“I should say, Too good,--too good by half, mother; at least, if
endurance be any virtue. The world is beautifully generous towards
us husbands. We are either monsters of cruelty, or we come into that
category the French call 'complaisant.' I can't say I have any fancy for
either class; but if I am driven to a choice, I accept the part which
meets the natural easiness of my disposition, the general kindliness of
my character.”
For an instant Lady Lendrick's eyes flashed with a fiery indignation,
and she seemed about to reply with anger; but with an effort she
controlled her passion, and took a turn or two in the room without
speaking. At last, having recovered her calm, she said, “Is the marriage
project then broken off?”
“So far as the Chief is concerned, it is. He has written a furious
letter to his granddaughter,--dwelt forcibly on the ingratitude of her
conduct. There is nothing old people so constantly refer to ingratitude
as young folks falling in love. It is strange what a close tie would
seem to connect this sin of ingratitude with the tender passion. He has
reminded her of all the good precepts and wise examples that were placed
before her at the Priory, and how shamefully she would seem to have
forgotten them. He asks her, Did she ever see him fall in love? Did she
ever see any weakness of this kind in Mrs. Beales the housekeeper, or
Joe the gardener?”
“What stuff and nonsense!” said Lady Lendrick, turning angrily away from
him. “Sir William is not an angel, but as certainly he is not a fool.”
“There I differ from you altogether. He may be the craftiest lawyer,
the wisest judge, the neatest scholar, and the best talker of his
day,--these are all claims I cannot adjudicate on,--they are far and
away above me. But I _do_ pretend to know something about life and the
world we live in, and I tell you that your all-accomplished Chief Baron
is, in whatever relates to these, as consummate an ass as ever I met
with. It is not that he is sometimes wrong; it is that he is never
right.”
“I can imagine he is not very clever at billiards, and it is possible
that there may be persons more conversant than _he_ with the odds at
Tattersall's,” said she, with a sneer.
“Not bad things to know something about, either of them,” said he,
quietly; “but not exactly what I was alluding to. It is, however,
somewhat amusing, mother, to see you come out as his defender. I assure
you, honestly, when I counselled him on that new wig, and advised him to
the choice of that dark velvet paletot, I never contemplated his making
a conquest of you.”
“He _has_ done some unwise things in life,” said she, with a fierce
energy; “but I do not know if he has ever done so foolish a one as
inviting you to come to live under his roof.”
“No, mother; the mistake was his not having done it earlier,--done it
when he might have fallen in more readily with the wise changes I have
introduced into his household, and when--most important element--he had
a better balance at his banker's. You can't imagine what sums of money
he has gone through.”
“I know nothing--I do not desire to know anything--of Sir William's
money matters.”
Not heeding in the slightest degree the tone of reproof she spoke in,
he went on, in the train of his own thoughts: “Yes! It would have made
a considerable difference to each of us had we met somewhat earlier. It
was a sort of backing I always wanted in life.”
“There was something else that you needed far more,” said she, with a
sarcastic sternness.
“I know what you mean, mother,--I know what it is. Your politeness will
not permit you to mention it. You would hint that I might not have been
the worse of a little honesty,--is n't that it? I was certain of it.
Well, do you know, mother, there's nothing in it,--positively nothing.
I 've met fellows who have tried it,--clever fellows too, some of
them,--and they have universally admitted it was as great a sham as the
other thing. As St. John said, Honesty is a sort of balloon jib, that
will bowl you along splendidly with fair weather; but when it comes on
to blow, you'll soon find it better to shift your canvas and bend a very
different sail. Now, men like myself are out in all kinds of weather; we
want a handy rig and light tackle.”
“Is Lucy coming to luncheon?” said Lady Lendrick, most unmistakably
showing how little palatable to her was his discourse.
“Not she. She's performing devoted mother up at the Priory, teaching
Regy his catechism, or Cary her scales, or, what has an infinitely finer
effect on the surrounders, dining with the children. Only dine with the
children, and you may run a-muck through the Decalogue all the evening
after.”
And with this profound piece of morality he adjusted his hat before the
glass, trimmed his whiskers, gave himself a friendly nod, and walked
away.