Colonel Sewell received the Chief Baron's message with a smothered
expression of no benevolent meaning.
“Who said I was here? How did he know I had arrived?” cried he, angrily.
“He saw the carman, sir; and asked for whom he was waiting.”
Another and not less energetic benediction was invoked on the rascally
car-driver, whom he had enjoined to avoid venturing in front of the
house.
“Say I'm coming; I'll be with him in an instant,” said be, as he
hurriedly pitched some clothes into his portmanteau.
Now it is but fair to own that this demand upon his time came at an
inconvenient moment; he had run up to town by an early train, and was
bent on going back by the next departure. During his absence, no letter
of any kind from his agent O'Reardon had reached him, and, growing
uneasy and impatient at this silence, he had come up to learn the
reason. At the office he heard that O'Reardon had not been there for
the last few days. It was supposed he was ill, but there was no means
of ascertaining the fact; none knew his address, as, they said, “he
was seldom in the same place for more than a week or two.” Sewell had a
profound distrust of his friend; indeed, the only reason for confiding
in him at all was, that it was less O'Reardon's interest to be false
than true. Since Fossbrooke's arrival, however, matters might have
changed. They might have met and talked together. Had Sir Brook seduced
the fellow to take service under him? Had he wormed out of him certain
secrets of his (Sewell's) life, and thus shown how useful he might be in
running him to earth? This was far from unlikely. It seemed the easiest
and most natural way of explaining the fellow's absence. At the same
time, if such were the case, would he not have taken care to write to
him? Would not his letters, calling for some sort of reply, some answer
to this or that query, have given him a better standing-ground with his
new master, showing how far he possessed Sewell's confidence, and how
able he was to make his treason to him effective? Harassed by these
doubts, and fearing he knew not what of fresh troubles, he had passed
a miserable week in the country. Debt and all its wretched consequences
were familiar enough to him. His whole life had been one long struggle
with narrow means, and with the expedients to meet expenses he should
never have indulged in. He had acquired, together with a recklessness,
a sort of self-reliance in these emergencies which positively seemed to
afford him a species of pleasure, and made him a hero to himself by his
successes; but there were graver troubles than these on his heart, and
with the memory of these Fossbrooke was so interwoven that to recall
them was to bring him up before him.
Besides these terrors, he had learned, during his short stay at the
Nest, a most unwelcome piece of intelligence. The vicar, Mr. Mills, had
shown him a letter from Dr. Lendrick, in which he said that the climate
disagreed with him, and his isolation and loneliness preyed upon him so
heavily that he had all but determined to resign his place and return
home. He added that he had given no intimation of this to his children,
lest by any change of plan he might inflict disappointment upon them;
nor had he spoken of it to his father, in the fear that if the Chief
Baron should offer any strenuous objection, he might be unable to carry
out his project; while to his old friend the vicar he owned that his
heart yearned after a home, and if it could only be that home where he
had lived so contentedly, the Nest! “If I could promise myself to
get back there again,” he wrote, “nothing would keep me here a month
longer.” Now, as Sewell had advertised the place to be let, Mills at
once showed him this letter, believing that the arrangement was such as
would suit each of them.
It needed all Sewell's habitual self-command not to show the uneasiness
these tidings occasioned him. Lendrick's return to Ireland might
undo--it was almost certain to undo--all the influence he had obtained
over the Chief Baron. The old Judge was never to be relied upon from one
day to the next. Now it was some impulse of vindictive passion, now of
benevolence. Who was to say when some parental paroxysm might not seize
him, and he might begin to care for his son?
Here was a new peril,--one he had never so much as imagined might befall
him. “I 'll have to consult my wife,” said he, hastily, in reply to
Mills's question. “She is not at all pleased at the notion of giving up
the place; the children were healthier here: in fact,” added he, in some
confusion, “I suspect we shall be back here one of these days.”
“I told him I'd have to consult _you_,” said Sewell, with an insolent
sneer, as he told his wife this piece of news. “I said you were so fond
of the country, so domestic, and so devoted to your children, that I
scarcely thought you 'd like to give up a place so suited to all your
tastes;--wasn't I right?”
She continued to look steadily at the book she had been reading, and
made no reply.
“I did n't say, though I might, that the spot was endeared to you by a
softer, more tender reminiscence; because, being a parson, there 's no
saying how he 'd have taken it.”
She raised her book higher, so as to conceal her face, but still said
nothing.
“At all events,” said he, in a more careless tone, “we are not going to
add to the inducements which attract this gentleman to return home, and
we must not forget that our host here may turn us out at any moment.”
“I think it will be our fault whenever he does so,” said she, quietly.
“Fault and misfortune are pretty much alike, to my thinking. There is
one thing, however, I have made up my mind on,--I 'll bolt. When he
gives notice to quit, he shall be obliged to provide for you and the
brats out of sheer necessity. He cannot turn you out on the streets, he
can't send you to the Union; you have no friends to whom he can pack you
off; so let him storm as he likes: something he must do.”
To this speech she seemed to give no attention whatever. Whether the
threat was an oft-repeated one, or that she was inured to coarseness
of this nature, or that silence was the best line to take in these
emergencies, she never appeared to notice his words.
“What about that money he promised you? Has he given it?” said he
suddenly, when about to leave the room.
“No; he said something about selling out some mining-shares,--scrip he
called it. I forget exactly what he said, but the purport was that he
was pressed just now.”
“I take it he is. My mother's allowance is in arrear, and she is not one
to bear the delay very patiently. So you 've got nothing?”
“Nothing, except ten pounds he gave Cary yesterday for her birthday.”
“Where is it?”
“In that work-box,--no, in the upper part. Do you want it?”
“What a question! Of course I want it, somewhat more than Gary does,
I promise you. I was going off to-day with just five sovereigns in my
pocket. By-bye. I shall be late if I don't hurry myself.” As he reached
the door he turned round. “What was it I had to tell you,--some piece of
news or other,--what could it have been?”
“Nothing pleasant, I 'm sure, so it's as well unremembered.”
“Polite, certainly,” said he, walking slowly back while he seemed trying
to recall something. “Oh, I have it. The transport that took out
the--th has been wrecked somewhere off Sardinia. Engine broken down,
paddle-wheels carried away, quarter-boats smashed, and, in fact, total
wreck. I have no time to tell you more;” and so saying, he hurried away,
but, opening the door noiselessly, he peeped in, and saw her with her
head buried in her hands, leaning on the table; and, stealing stealthily
down the corridor, he hastened to his room to pack up for his journey;
and it was while thus occupied the Chief's message reached him.
When the Chief Baron asked Haire to call at the Police Office and
inquire if he might not be permitted to see the person who had been
arrested that morning at Howth, he had not the very vaguest idea what
step he should next take, nor what proceedings institute, if his demand
might be acceded to. The indignant anger he felt at the slight put upon
him by the Government in passing him over on the Commission, had got
such entire possession of him that he only thought of a reprisal without
considering how it was to be effected. “I am not one to be insulted with
impunity. Are these men such ignorant naturalists as not to know that
there is one species of whale that the boldest never harpoons? Swift was
a Dean, but he never suffered his cassock to impede the free use of his
limbs. I am a Judge, but they shall see that the ermine embarrasses me
just as little. They have provoked the conflict, and it is not for me to
decline it. They are doing scores of things every day in Ireland that,
if there was one man of ability and courage opposed to them, would shake
the Cabinet to its centre. I will make Pemberton's law a proverb and a
byword. The public will soon come to suspect that the reason I am not
on the Bench at these trials is not to be looked for in the spiteful
malignity of the Castle, but in the conscientious scruples of one who
warned the Crown against these prosecutions. They were not satisfied
with native disaffection, and they have invented a new crime for
Ireland, which they call treason-felony; but they have forgotten to
apprise the people, who go on blunderingly into treason as of old, too
stupid to be taught by a statute! The Act is a new one. It would give
me scant labor to show that it cannot be made law, that its clauses are
contradictory, its provisions erroneous, its penalties evasive. What
is to prevent me introducing, as a digression, into my next charge to a
grand jury, my regrets or sorrows over such bungling legislation? Who
is to convict me for arraigning the wisdom of Parliament, or telling the
country, You are legislated for by ignorance! your statutes are made
by incompetence! The public press is always open, and it will soon be
bruited about that the letter signed 'Lycurgus' was written by William
Lendrick. I will take Barnewell or Perrin, or some other promising young
fellow of the junior bar, and instruct him for the defence. I will
give him law enough to confute, and he shall furnish the insolence to
confront this Attorney-General. There never was a case better suited
to carry the issue out of the Queen's Bench and arraign the Queen's
advisers. Let them turn upon me if they dare: I was a citizen before
I was a lawyer, I was an Irishman before I became a judge. There was
a bishop who braved the Government in the days of the volunteers. They
shall find that high station in Ireland is but another guarantee for
patriotism.” By such bursts of angry denunciation had he excited himself
to such a degree that when Sewell entered the room the old man's face
was flushed, his eye flashing, and his lip quivering with passion.
“I was not aware of your absence, sir!” said he, sternly; “and a mere
accident informed me that you were going away again.”
“A sudden call required my presence at Killaloe, my Lord; and I found
when I had got there I had left some papers behind here.”
“The explanation would be unexceptionable, sir, if this house were an
inn to which a man comes and returns as he pleases; but if I err not,
you are my guest here, and I hope if a host has duties he has rights.”
“My Lord, I attached so very little importance to my presence that I
never flattered myself by thinking I should be missed.”
“I seldom flatter, sir, and I never do so where I intend to censure!”
Sewell bowed submissively, but the effort to control his temper cost him
a sharp pang and a terrible struggle. “Enough of this, at least for the
present; though I may mention, passingly, that we must take an early
opportunity of placing our relations towards each other on some basis
that may be easily understood by each of us. The law of contracts will
guide us to the right course. My object in sending for you now is to
ask a service at your hands, if your other engagements will leave you at
liberty to render it.”
“I am entirely at your Lordship's orders.”
“Well, sir, I will be very brief. I must needs be so, for I have
fatigued myself by much talking already. The papers will have informed
you that I am not to sit on this Commission. The Ministers who cannot
persuade me by their blandishments are endeavoring to disgust me by
insult. They have read the fable of the sun and the wind backwards, and
inverted the moral. It had been whispered abroad that if I tried these
men there would have been no convictions. They raked up some early
speeches of mine--youthful triumphs they were--in defence of Wolfe Tone,
and Jackson, and others; and they argued--no, I am wrong--they did not
argue, they imagined, that the enthusiasm of the advocate might have
twined itself around the wisdom of the Judge. They have quoted, too, in
capital letters,--it is there on the table,--the peroration of my
speech in Neilson's case, where I implored the jury to be cautious and
circumspect, for so deeply had the Crown advisers compromised themselves
in the pursuit of rebellion, it needed the most careful sifting not
to include the law-officers of the Castle, and to avoid placing the
Attorney-General side by side with his victim.”
“How sarcastic! how cutting!” muttered Sewell, in praise.
“It was more than sarcastic, sir. It stung the Orange jury to the quick;
and though they convicted my client, they trembled at the daring of his
defender.
“But I turn from the past to the present,” said he, after a pause. “They
have arrested this morning, at Howth, a man who is said to be of rank
and station. The examination, conducted in secret, has concealed his
name; and all that we know is that bail has not been accepted, if
offered, for him. So long as these arrests concerned the vulgar fellows
who take to rebellion for its robberies, no case can be made. With the
creatures of rusty pikes and ruffian natures I have no sympathy. It
matters little whether they be transported for treason or for theft.
With the gentleman it is otherwise. Some speculative hope, some
imaginative aspiration of serving his country, some wild dream begotten
of the great Revolution of France, dashed not impossibly with some
personal wrong, drives men from their ordinary course in life, and makes
them felons where they meant to be philanthropists. I have often thought
if this movement now at work should throw up to the surface one of this
stamp, what a fine occasion it might afford to test the wisdom of those
who rule us, to examine the machinery by which they govern, and to
consider the advantage of that system,--such a favorite system in
Ireland, by which rebellion is fostered as a means of subsequent
concession, as though it were necessary to manure the loyalty of the
land by the blood of traitors.
“I weary you, sir, and I am sorry for it. No, no, make no protestations.
It is a theme cannot have the same interest for _you_ as for _me_.
What I would ask of you is, to go down to the head-office and see
Mr. Spencer, and learn from him if you might have an order to see the
prisoner,--your pretext being the suspicion that he is personally known
to you. If you succeed in getting the order, you will proceed to the
Richmond Bridewell and have an interview with him. You are a man of the
world, sir, and I need not give you any instructions how to ascertain
his condition, his belongings, and his means of defence. If he be
a gentleman, in the sense we use that term when applying its best
attributes to it, you will be frank and outspoken, and will tell him
candidly that your object is to make his case the groundwork of an
attack on the Government, and the means by which all the snares that
have led men to rebellion may be thoroughly exposed, and the craft of
the Crown lawyer be arraigned beside the less cold-blooded cruelty of
the traitor. Do you fully comprehend me, sir?”
“I think so, my Lord, Your intention is, if I take you correctly, to
make the case, if it be suitable, the groundwork for an attack on the
Government of Ireland.”
“In which I am not to appear.”
“Of course, my Lord; though possibly with no objection that it should be
known how far your sympathy is with a free discussion of the whole state
of Ireland?”
“You apprehend me aright, sir,--a free discussion of the whole state of
Ireland.”
“I go, therefore, without any concert with your Lordship at present. I
take this step entirely at my own instance?”
“You do, sir. If matters eventually should take the turn which admits of
any intervention on my part--any expression of opinion--any elucidation
of sentiments attributed to me--I will be free to make such in the
manner I deem suitable.”
“In case this person should prove one, either from his character or the
degree in which he has implicated himself, unfitted for your Lordship's
object, I am to drop the negotiation?”
“Rather, I should say, sir, you are not to open it.”
“I meant as much,” said Sewell, with some irritation.
“It is an occasion, sir, for careful action and precise expression.
I have no doubt you will acquit yourself creditably in each of these
respects. Are you already acquainted with Mr. Spencer?”
“We have met at the Club, my Lord; he at least knows who I am.”
“That will be quite sufficient. One point more--I have no need to
caution you as to secrecy--this is a matter which cannot be talked of.”
“That you may rely on, my Lord; reserve is so natural to me, that I have
to put no strain upon my manner to remember it.”
“I shall be curious to hear the result of your visit,--that is, if you
be permitted to visit the Bridewell. Will you do me the favor to come to
me at once?”
Sewell promised this faithfully, and withdrew.
“If ever an old fool wanted to run his head into a noose,” muttered he,
“here is one; the slightest blunder on my part, intentional or not, and
this great Baron of the Exchequer might be shown up as abetting
treason. To be sure, he has given me nothing under his hand--nothing
in writing--I wonder was that designedly or not; he is so crafty in the
middle of all his passion.” Thus meditating, he went on his mission.