The Complete Works of George Bernard Shaw. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
man Mellish, whose mouth was closed by a law which, in defiance of the obvious interests of justice, forbade a prisoner to speak and clear himself — nothing, in fact, but the fancies of constables who had, under cross-examination, not only contradicted one another, but shown the most complete ignorance (a highly creditable ignorance) of the nature and conditions of a prizefight; then counsel would venture to say confidently that the theory of the prosecution, ingenious as it was, and ably as it had been put forward, was absolutely and utterly untenable.
This, and much more argument of equal value, was delivered with relish by a comparatively young barrister, whose spirits rose as he felt the truth change and fade while he rearranged its attendant circumstances. Cashel listened for some time anxiously. He flushed and looked moody when his marriage was alluded to; but when the whole defence was unrolled, he was awestruck, and stared at his advocate as if he half feared that the earth would gape and swallow such a reckless perverter of patent facts. Even the judge in the city; and was eventually invited to represent a Dorsetshire constituency in Parliament in the Radical interest. He was returned by a large majority; and, having a loud voice and an easy manner, he soon acquired some reputation both in and out of the House of Commons by the popularity of his own views, and the extent of his wife’s information, which he retailed at second hand. He made his maiden speech in the House unabashed the first night he sat there. Indeed, he was afraid of nothing except burglars, big dogs, doctors, dentists, and street-crossings. Whenever any accident occurred through any of these he preserved the newspaper in which it was reported, read it to Lydia very seriously, and repeated his favorite assertion that the only place in which a man was safe was the ring. As he objected to most field sports on the ground of inhumanity, she, fearing that he would suffer in health and appearance from want of systematic exercise, suggested that he should resume the practice of boxing with gloves. But he was lazy in this matter, and had a prejudice that boxing did not become a married man. His career as a pugilist was closed by his marriage.
His admiration for his wife survived the ardor of his first love for her, and she employed all her forethought not to disappoint his reliance on her judgment. She led a busy life, and wrote some learned monographs, as well as a work in which she denounced education as practised in the universities and public schools. Her children inherited her acuteness and refinement with their father’s robustness and aversion to study. They were precocious and impudent, had no respect for Cashel, and showed any they had for their mother principally by running to her when they were in difficulties. She never punished nor scolded them; but she contrived to make their misdeeds recoil naturally upon them so inevitably that they soon acquired a lively moral sense which restrained them much more effectually than the usual methods of securing order in the nursery. Cashel treated them kindly for the purpose of conciliating them; and when Lydia spoke of them to him in private, he seldom said more than that the imps were too sharp for him, or that he was blest if he didn’t believe that they were born older than their father. Lydia often thought so too; but the care of this troublesome family had one advantage for her. It left her little time to think about herself, or about the fact that when the illusion of her love passed away Cashel fell in her estimation. But the children were a success; and she soon came to regard him as one of them. When she had leisure to consider the matter at all, which seldom occurred, it seemed to her that, on the whole, she had chosen wisely.
Alice Goff, when she heard of Lydia’s projected marriage, saw that she must return to Wiltstoken, and forget her brief social splendor as soon as possible. She therefore thanked Miss Carew for her bounty, and begged to relinquish her post of companion. Lydia assented, but managed to delay this sacrifice to a sense of duty and necessity until a day early in winter, when Lucian gave way to a hankering after smiled once or twice; and when he did so the jurymen grinned, but recovered their solemnity suddenly when the bench recollected itself and became grave again. Every one in court knew that the police were right — that there had been a prizefight — that the betting on it had been recorded in all the sporting papers for weeks beforehand — that Cashel was the most terrible fighting man of the day, and that Paradise had not dared to propose a renewal of the interrupted contest. And they listened with admiration and delight while the advocate proved that these things were incredible and nonsensical.
It remained for the judge to sweep away the defence, or to favor the prisoners by countenancing it. Fortunately for them, he was an old man; and could recall, not without regret, a time when the memory of Cribb and Molyneux was yet green. He began his summing-up by telling the jury that the police had failed to prove that the fight was a prizefight. After that, the public, by indulging in roars of laughter whenever they could find a pretext for doing so without being turned out of court, showed that they had ceased to regard the trial seriously.
Finally the jury acquitted Mellish, and found Cashel and Paradise guilty of a common assault. They were sentenced to two days’ imprisonment, and bound over to keep the peace for twelve months in sureties of one hundred and fifty pounds each. The sureties were forthcoming; and as the imprisonment was supposed to date from the beginning of the sessions, the prisoners were at once released.
CHAPTER XVI
Miss Carew, averse to the anomalous relations of courtship, made as little delay as possible in getting married. Cashel’s luck was not changed by the event. Bingley Byron died three weeks after the ceremony (which was civic and private); and Cashel had to claim possession of the property in Dorsetshire, in spite of his expressed wish that the lawyers would take themselves and the property to the devil, and allow him to enjoy his honeymoon in peace. The transfer was not, however, accomplished at once. Owing to his mother’s capricious reluctance to give the necessary information without reserve, and to the law’s delay, his first child was born some time before his succession was fully established and the doors of his ancestral hall opened to him. The conclusion of the business was a great relief to his attorneys, who had been unable to shake his conviction that the case was clear enough, but that the referee had been squared. By this he meant that the Lord Chancellor had been bribed to keep him out of his property.
His marriage proved an unusually happy one. To make up for the loss of his occupation, he farmed, and lost six thousand pounds by it; tried gardening with better success; began to meddle in commercial enterprises, and became director of several trading companies in the city; and was eventually invited to represent a Dorsetshire constituency in Parliament in the Radical interest. He was returned by a large majority; and, having a loud voice and an easy manner, he soon acquired some reputation both in and out of the House of Commons by the popularity of his own views, and the extent of his wife’s information, which he retailed at second hand. He made his maiden speech in the House unabashed the first night he sat there. Indeed, he was afraid of nothing except burglars, big dogs, doctors, dentists, and street-crossings. Whenever any accident occurred through any of these he preserved the newspaper in which it was reported, read it to Lydia very seriously, and repeated his favorite assertion that the only place in which a man was safe was the ring. As he objected to most field sports on the ground of inhumanity, she, fearing that he would suffer in health and appearance from want of systematic exercise, suggested that he should resume the practice of boxing with gloves. But he was lazy in this matter, and had a prejudice that boxing did not become a married man. His career as a pugilist was closed by his marriage.
His admiration for his wife survived the ardor of his first love for her, and she employed all her forethought not to disappoint his reliance on her judgment. She led a busy life, and wrote some learned monographs, as well as a work in which she denounced education as practised in the universities and public schools. Her children inherited her acuteness and refinement with their father’s robustness and aversion to study. They were precocious and impudent, had no respect for Cashel, and showed any they had for their mother principally by running to her when they were in difficulties. She never punished nor scolded them; but she contrived to make their misdeeds recoil naturally upon them so inevitably that they soon acquired a lively moral sense which restrained them much more effectually than the usual methods of securing order in the nursery. Cashel treated them kindly for the purpose of conciliating them; and when Lydia spoke of them to him in private, he seldom said more than that the imps