Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.. Lever Charles James
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