As Sewell awoke, it was already evening. Fatigue and anxiety together
had so overcome him that he slept like one drugged by a narcotic; nor
did he very quickly recall on awakening how and wherefore he had not
been to bed. His servant had left two letters on his table while he
slept, and these served to remind him of some at least of the troubles
that last oppressed him. One was from his law-agent, regretting that he
could not obtain for him the loan he solicited on any terms whatever,
and mildly suggesting that he trusted the Colonel would be prepared to
meet certain acceptances which would fall due in the coming week.
The other was from a friend whom he had often assisted in moments of
difficulty, and ran:--
“Dear S.,--I lost two hundred last night at pool, and, what's worse,
can't pay it. That infernal rule of yours about prompt payment will
smash us both,--but it's so like you! You never had a run of luck yet
that you didn't do something that turned against you afterwards. Your
clever rule about the selling-stakes cost me the best mare I ever had;
and now this blessed stroke of your genius leaves me in doubt whether to
blow my brains out or start for Boulogne. As Tom Beecher said, you are
a 'deuced deal too 'cute to prosper.' If I have to cross the water, I
suspect you might as well come with me.--Yours,
“Dick Vaughan.”
Sewell tore the note up into the smallest fragments, muttering savagely
to himself the while. “I'll be bound,” said he, “the cur is half
consoled for his mishap by seeing how much worse ruin has befallen
_me_,--What is it, Watkin? What do you want?” cried he to his servant,
who came hastily into the room.
“His Lordship has taken a bad turn, sir, and Mrs. Sewell wants to see
you immediately.”
“All right! Say I'm coming. Who knows,” muttered he, “but there's a
chance for me yet?” He turned into his dressing-room and bathed his
temples and his head with cold water, and, refreshed at once, he
ascended the stairs.
“Another attack has come on. He was sleeping calmly,” said Mrs. Sewell
as she met him, “when he awoke with a start, and broke out into wild
raving. I have sent for Beattie; but what is to be done meanwhile?”
“I 'm no doctor; I can't tell you.”
“Haire thinks the ice ought to be applied; the nurse says-a blister or
mustard to the back of the neck.”
“Is he really in danger?--that's the question.”
“I believe so. I never saw him so ill.”
“You think he's dying?” said he, fiercely, as though he would not brook
any sort of equivocation; but the coarseness of his manner revolted
her, and she turned away without reply. “There's no time to be lost,”
muttered Sewell, as he hastened downstairs. “Tell George I want the
carriage to the door immediately,” said he; and then, entering his own
room, he opened his writing-desk, and, after some search, came upon a
packet, which he sealed and addressed.
“Are you going for Beattie?” asked Mrs. Sewell, as she appeared at the
door; “for Haire says it would be better to fetch some one--any one--at
once.”
“I have ordered the carriage. I 'll get Lysaght or Adams-if I should not
find Beattie; and mind, if Beattie come while I am away, detain him, and
don't let him leave this till I return. Do you mind me?”
“Yes; I 'll tell him what you say.”
“Ay, but you must insist upon his doing it. There will be all sorts of
stories if he should die--”
“Stories? what do you mean by stories?” cried she, in alarm.
“Rumors of neglect, of want of proper care of him, and such-like, which
would be most insulting. At all events, I am resolved Beattie should be
here at the last; and take care that he does not leave. I 'll call at
my mother's too; she ought to come back with me. We have to deal with a
scandal-loving world, and let us leave them as little to fall foul of
as may be.” All this was said hurriedly, as he bustled about the room,
fussy and impatient, and with an eagerness to be off which certainly
surprised her.
“You know where to find these doctors,--you have their addresses?” asked
she.
“George knows all about them.”
“And William does, at all events.”
“I'm not taking William. I don't want a footman with a brougham. It is
a light carriage and speedy cattle that are needed at this moment; and
here they come. Now, mind that you keep Beattie till I come back; and
if there be any inquiries, simply say the Chief Baron is the same as
yesterday.”
“Had I not better consult Dr. Beattie?”
“You will do as I tell you, Madam,” said he, sternly. “You have heard
my directions; take care that you follow them. To Mr. Lysaght's,
George--no, first to Dr. Beattie's, Merrion Square,” cried he, as he
stepped into the carriage, “and drive fast.”
“Yes, sir,” said the coachman, and started at once. He had not proceeded
more than half-way down the avenue, however, when Sewell, leaning out of
the window, said, “Don't go into town, George; make for the Park by the
shortest cut you can, the Secretary's Lodge.”
“All right, sir; the beasts are fresh. We 'll be there in thirty
minutes.” True to his word, within the half-hour the horses, white with
sweat and flanking like racero, stood at the door of the Secretary's
Lodge. Four or five private carriages and some cabs were also at the
door, signs of a dinner-party which had not yet broken up.
“Take this card in to Mr. Balfour, Mr. Wells,” said he to the butler,
who was an old acquaintance, “and say I want one minute in private
with him,--strictly private, mind. I 'll step into the library here and
wait.”
“What's up, Sewell? Are you in a new scrape, eh?” said Balfour,
entering, slightly flushed with wine and conversation, and half put out
by the interruption.
“Not much of a scrape,--can you give me five minutes?”
“Wells said one minute, and that's why I came. The Castledowns and Eyres
and the Ashes are here, and the Langrish girls, and Dick Upton.”
“A very choice company, for robbing you of which even for a moment I owe
every apology, but still my excuse is a good one. Are you as anxious to
promote your Solicitor-General as you were a week or two ago?”
“If you mean Pemberton, I wish he was--on the Bench, or in Abraham's
bosom--I don't much care which, for he is the most confounded bore in
Christendom. Do you come to tell me that you'll poison him?”
“No; but I can promote him.”
“Why--how--in what way?”
“I told you a few days ago that I could manage to make the old man
give in his resignation; that it required some tact and address, and
especially the absence of everything like menace or compulsion.”
“Well, well, well--have you done it--is it a fact?”
“It is.”
“I mean, an indisputable, irrevocable fact,--something not to be denied
or escaped from?”
“Just so; a fact not to be denied or escaped from.”
“It must come through me, Sewell, mind that. I took charge of the
negotiation two years ago, and no one shall step in and rob me of my
credit. I have had all the worry and fatigue of the transaction, and I
insist, if there be any glory in success, it shall be mine.”
“You shall have all the glory, as you call it. What I aspire to is
infinitely less brilliant.”
“You want a place--hard enough to find one--at least to find something
worth having. You 'll want something as good as the Registrarship, eh?”
“No; I'll not pester you with my claims. I'm not in love with official
life. I doubt if I am well fitted for it.”
“You want a seat in the House,--is that it?”
“Not exactly,” said Sewell, laughing; “though there is a good stroke of
business to be done in private bills and railway grants. My want is the
simplest of all wants,--money.”
“Money! But how am I to give you money? Out of what fund is it to come?
You don't imagine we live in the old days of secret-service funds, with
unlimited corruption to back us, do you?”
“I suspect that the source from which it is to come is a matter of
perfect indifference to me. You can easily squeeze me into the estimates
as a special envoy, or a Crown Prosecution, or a present to the Emperor
of Morocco.”
“Nothing of the kind. You are totally in error. All these fine days are
past and gone. They go over us now like a schedule in bankruptcy; and it
would be easier to make you a colonial bishop than give you fifty pounds
out of the Consolidated Fund.”
“Well, I 'd not object to the Episcopate if there was some good shooting
in the diocese.”
“I 've no time for chaff,” said Balfour, impatiently. “I am leaving my
company too long, besides. Just come over here to-morrow to breakfast,
and we 'll talk the whole thing over.”
“No, I 'll not come to breakfast; I breakfast in bed: and if we are to
come to any settlement of this matter, it shall be here and now.”
“Very peremptory all this, considering that the question is not of
_your_ retirement.”
“Quite true. It is not _my_ retirement we have to discuss, but it is,
whether I shall choose to hand you the Chief Baron's, which I hold
here,”--and he produced the packet as he spoke,--“or go back and induce
him to reconsider and withdraw it. Is not that a very intelligible way
to put the case, Balfour? Did you expect such a business-like tone from
an idle dog like _me?_”
“And I am to believe that the document in your hand contains the Chief
Baron's resignation?”
“You are to believe it or not,--that's at your option. It is the fact,
at all events.”
“And what power have you to withhold it, when he has determined to
tender it?”
“About the same power I have to do this,” said Sewell, as, taking up a
sheet of note-paper from the table, he tore it into fragments, and threw
them into the fire. “I think you might see that the same influence by
which I induced him to write this would serve to make him withhold it.
The Judge condescends to think me a rather shrewd man of the world, and
takes my advice occasionally.”
“Well, but--another point,” broke in Balfour, hurriedly. “What if he
should recall this to-morrow or the day after? What if he were to say
that on reconsideration he felt unwilling to retire? It is clear we
could not well coerce him.”
“You know very little of the man when you suggest such a possibility. He
'd as soon think of suicide as doubt any decision he had once formally
announced to the world. The last thing that would ever occur to him
would be to disparage his infallibility.”
“I declare I am quite ashamed of being away so long; could n't you come
down to the office to-morrow, at your own hour, and talk the whole thing
over quietly?”
“Impossible. I 'll be very frank with you. I lost a pot of money last
night to Langton, and have n't got it to pay him. I tried twenty
places during the day, and failed. I tossed over a score of so-called
securities, not worth sixpence in a time of pressure, and I came upon
this, which has been in my hands since Monday last, and I thought,
Now Balfour would n't exactly give me five hundred pounds for it, but
there's no reason in life that he might not obtain that sum for me in
some quarter. Do you see?”
“I see,--that is, I see everything but the five hundred.”
“If you don't, then you'll never see this,” said Sewell, replacing it in
his pocket.
“You won't comprehend that I've no fund to go to; that there 's no bank
to back me through such a transaction. Just be a little reasonable,
and you 'll see that I can't do this out of my own pocket. It is true I
could press your claim on the party. I could say, what I am quite ready
to say, that we owe the whole arrangement to _you_, and that, especially
as it will cost you the loss of your Registrarship, you must not be
forgotten.”
“There's the mistake, my dear fellow. I don't want that. I don't want
to be made supervisor of mad-houses, or overlooker of light-ships.
Until office hours are comprised between five and six o'clock of the
afternoon, and some of the cost of sealing-wax taken out in sandwiches,
I don't mean to re-enter public life. I stand out for cash payment. I
hope that's intelligible.”
“Oh, perfectly so; but as impossible as intelligible.”
“Then, in that case, there 's no more to be said. All apologies for
having taken you so long from your friends. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said Balfour. “I 'm sorry we can't come to some
arrangement. Good-night.”
“As this document will now never see the light, and as all action in the
matter will be arrested,” said Sewell, gravely, “I rely upon your never
mentioning our present interview.”
“I declare I don't see why I am precluded from speaking of it to my
friends,--confidentially, of course.”
“You had better not.”
“Better not! better in what sense? As regards the public interests, or
my personal ones?”
“I simply repeat, you had better not.” He put on his hat as he spoke,
and without a word of leave-taking moved towards the door.
“Stop one moment,--a thought has just struck me. You like a sporting
offer. I 'll bet you twenty pounds even, you 'll not let me read the
contents of that paper; and I 'll lay you long odds--two hundred to one,
in pounds--that you don't give it to me.”
“You certainly _do_ like a good thing, Balfour. In plain words, you
offer me two hundred and twenty. I 'll be shot if I see why they should
have higgled so long about letting the Jews into Parliament when fellows
like _you_ have seats there.”
“Be good enough to remember,” said Balfour, with an easy smile, “that I
'm the only bidder, and if the article be not knocked down to me there's
no auction.”
“I was certain I'd hear that from you! I never yet knew a fellow do a
stingy thing, that he had n't a shabbier reason to sustain it.”
“Come, come, there's no need of this. You can say no to my offer without
a rudeness to myself.”
“Ay, that's all true, if one only had temper for it, but I have n't; and
I have my doubts that even _you_ would if you were to be tried as sorely
as I am.”
“I never do get angry; a man shows his hand when he loses his temper,
and the fellow who keeps cool can always look at the other's cards.”
“Wise precepts, and worth coming out here to listen to,” said Sewell,
whose thoughts were evidently directed elsewhere. “I take your offer;
I only make one condition,--you keep the negotiation a secret, or only
impart it where it will be kept secret.”
“I think that's all fair. I agree to that. Now for the document”
“There it is,” said Sewell, as he threw the packet on the table, while
he seated himself in a deep chair, and crossed his arms on his chest.
Balfour opened the paper and began to read, but soon burst forth
with--“How like him--how like him!--'Less oppressed, indeed, by years
than sustained by the conscious sense of long services to the State.' I
think I hear him declaiming it.
“This is not bad: 'While at times afflicted by the thought, that to the
great principles of the law, of which I had made this Court the temple
and the sanctuary, there will now succeed the vague decisions and
imperfect judgments of less learned expositors of justice, I am
comforted by remembering that I leave behind me some records worthy of
memory,--traditions that will not easily die.'”
“That's the modest note; hear him when he sounds the indignant chord,”
said Sewell.
“Ay, here we have it: 'If I have delayed, my Lord, in tendering to
you this my resignation, it is that I have waited till, the scurrilous
tongues of slander silenced, and the smaller, but not less malevolent,
whisperings of jealousy subdued, I might descend from the Bench amidst
the affectionate regrets of those who regard me as the last survivor of
that race which made Ireland a nation.' The liquor is genuine,” cried
Balfour, laughing. “There's no disputing it, you have won your money.”
“I should think so,” was Sewell's cool reply. “He has the same knack in
that sort of thing that the girl in the well-known shop in Seville has
in twisting a cigarette.”
Balfour took out his keys to open his writing-desk, and, pondering for
a moment or two, at last said, “I wish any man would tell me why I am
going to give you this money,--do you know, Sewell?”
“Because you promised it, I suppose.”
“Yes; but why should I have promised it? What can it possibly signify to
me which of our lawyers presides in Her Majesty's Irish Exchequer? I 'm
sure you 'd not give ten pounds to insure this man or that, in or out of
the Cabinet.”
“Not ten shillings. They 're all dark horses to me, and if you offered
me the choice of the lot, I 'd not know which to take; but I always
heard that you political fellows cared so much for your party, and
took your successes and failures so much to heart, that there was no
sacrifice you were not ready to make to insure your winning.”
“We now and then do run a dead-heat, and one would really give something
to come in first; but what's that?--I declare there 's a carriage
driving off--some one has gone. I 'll have to swear that some alarming
news has come from the South. Good-night--I must be off.”
“Don't forget the cash before you go.”
“Oh, to be sure, here you are--crisp and clean, ain't they? I got them
this morning, and certainly never intended to part with them on such an
errand.”
Sewell folded up the notes with a grim smile, and said, “I only wish I
had a few more big-wigs to dispose of,--you should have them cheap; as
Stag and Mantle say, 'articles no longer in great vogue.'”
“There's another departure!” cried Balfour. “I shall be in great
disgrace!” and hurried away without a “goodbye.”