Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.

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.

CHAPTER VIII. TWO MEN WELL MET

Sewell had long coveted the suite of rooms known at the Priory as “Miss Lucy’s.” They were on the ground-floor; they opened on a small enclosed garden of their own; they had a delicious aspect; and it was a thousand pities they should be consigned to darkness and spiders while he wanted so much a snuggery of his own, – a little territory which could be approached without coming through the great entrance, and where he could receive his familiars, and a variety of other creatures whose externals alone would have denied them admittance to any decent household.

Now, although Sir William’s letter to Lucy was the sort of document which, admitting no species of reply, usually closes a correspondence, Sewell had not courage to ask the Chief for the rooms in question. It would be too like peremptory action to be prudent. It might lead the old man to reconsider his judgment. Who knows what tender memories the thought might call up? Indeed, as Sewell himself remembered, he had seen fellows in India show great emotion at the sale of a comrade’s kit, though they had read the news of his death with comparative composure. “If the old fellow were to toddle in here, and see her chair and her writing-table and her easel, it might undo everything,” said he; so that he wisely resolved it would be better to occupy the premises without a title than endeavor to obtain them legitimately.

By a slight effort of diplomacy with Mrs. Beales, he obtained possession of the key, and as speedily installed himself in occupancy. Indeed, when the venerable housekeeper came round to see what the Colonel could possibly want to do with the rooms, she scarcely recognized them. A pipe-rack covered one wall, furnished with every imaginable engine for smoke; a stand for rifles and fowling-pieces occupied a corner; some select prints of Derby winners and ballet celebrities were scattered about; while a small African monkey, of that color they call green, sat in a small arm-chair, of his own, near the window, apparently sunk in deep reflection. This creature, whom his master called Dundas – I am unable to say after what other representative of the name – was gifted with an instinctive appreciation of duns, and flew at the man who presented a bill as unerringly as ever a bull rushed at the bearer of a red rag.

How he learned to know tailors, shoemakers, and tobacconists, and distinguish them from the rest of mankind, and how he recognized them as natural enemies, I cannot say. As for Se well, he always spoke of the gift as the very strongest evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory, and declared it was the prospective sense of troubles to come that suggested the instinct. The chalk head, the portrait Lucy had made of Sir Brook, still hung over the fireplace. It would be a curious subject of inquiry to know why Sewell suffered it still to hold its place there. If there was a man in the world whom he thoroughly hated, it was Fossbrooke. If there was one to injure whom he would have bartered fortune and benefit to himself, it was he. And how came it that he could bear to have this reminder of him so perpetually before his eyes? – that the stern features should be ever bent upon him, – darkly, reproachfully lowering, as he had often seen them in life? If it were simply that his tenure of the place was insecure, what so easy as to replace the picture, and why should he endure the insult of its presence there? No, there was some other reason, – some sentiment stronger than a reason, – some sense of danger in meddling with that man in any shape. Over and over again he vowed to himself he would hang it against a tree, and make a pistol-mark of it. Again and again he swore that he would destroy it; he even drew out his penknife to sever the head from the neck, significant sign of how he would like to treat the original; but yet he had replaced his knife, and repressed his resolve, and sat down again to brood over his anger inoperative.

To frown at the “old rascal,” as he loved to call him, – to menace him with his fist as he passed, – to scowl at him as he sat before the fire, were, after all, the limits of his wrath; but still the picture exerted a certain influence over him, and actually inspired a sense of fear as well as a sense of hatred.

Am I imposing too much on my reader’s memory by asking him to recall a certain Mr. O’Reardon, in whose humble dwelling at Cullen’s Wood Sir Brook Fossbrooke was at one time a lodger? Mr. O’Reardon, though an official of one of the law courts, and a patriot by profession, may not have made that amount of impression necessary to retain a place in the reader’s recollection, nor indeed is it my desire to be exacting on this head. He is not the very best of company, and we shall not see much of him.

When Sewell succeeded to the office of Registrar, which the old Judge carried against the Castle with a high hand, he found Mr. O’Reardon there; he had just been promoted to the rank of keeper of the waiting-room. In the same quick glance with which the shrewd Colonel was wont to single out a horse, and knew the exact sort of quality he possessed, he read this man, and saw with rapid intelligence the stuff he was made of, and the sort of service he could render.

He called him into his office, and, closing the door, asked him a few questions about his former life. O’Reardon, long accustomed to regard the man who spoke with an English accent as an easy dupe, launched out on his devoted loyalty, the perils it had cost him, the hate to which his English attachment exposed him from his countrymen, and the little reward all his long-proved fidelity had ever won him; but Sewell cut him suddenly short with: “Don’t try any of this sort of balderdash upon me, old fellow, – it’s only lost time: I’ve been dealing with blackguards of your stamp all my life, and I read them like print.”

“Oh! your honor, them’s hard words, – blackguard, blackguard! to a decent man that always had a good name and a good character.”

“What I want you to understand is this,” said Sewell, scanning him keenly while he spoke, “and to understand it well: that if you intend to serve me, and make yourself useful in whatever way I see fit to employ you, there must be no humbug about it. The first lesson you have to learn is, never to imagine you can take me in. As I have just told you, I have had my education amongst fellows more than your masters in craft, – so don’t lose your time in trying to outrogue me.”

“Your honor’s practical, – I always like to serve a gentleman that’s practical,” said the fellow, with a totally changed voice.

“That will do, – speak that way, – drop your infernal whine, – turn out your patriotic sentiments to grass, and we’ll get on comfortably.”

“Be gorra! that’s practical, – practical, every word of it.”

“Now the first thing I want is to know who are the people who come here. I shall require to be able to distinguish those who are accustomed to frequent the office from strangers; I suppose you know the attorneys and solicitors, all of them?”

“Every man of them, sir; there’s not a man in Dublin with a pair of black trousers that I could n’t give you the history of.”

“That’s practical, certainly,” said Sewell, adopting his phrase; and the other laughed pleasantly at the employment of it. “Whenever you have to announce persons that are strangers to you, and whose business you can’t find out, mention that I am most busily engaged, – that persons of consequence are with me, – delay them, in short, and put them off for another day – ”

“Till I can find out all about them?” broke in O’Reardon.

“Exactly.”

“And that’s what I can do as well as any man in Ireland,” said the fellow, overjoyed at the thought of such congenial labor.

“I suppose you know a dun by the look of him?” asked Sewell, with a low, quiet laugh.

“Don’t I, then?” was the reply.

“I ‘ll have none of them hanging about here, – mind that; you may tell them what you please, but take care that my orders are obeyed.”

“I will, sir.”

“I shall probably not come down every day to the office; it may chance that I may be absent a week at a time; but remember, I am always here, – you understand, – I am here, or I am at the Chief Baron’s chambers, – somewhere, in short, about the Court.”

“Up in one of the arbitration rooms, maybe,” added O’Rear-don, to show he perfectly comprehended his instructions.

“But whether I come to the office or not, I shall expect you every morning at the Priory, to report to me whatever I ought to know, – who has called, – what rumors are afloat; and mind you tell everything as it reaches you. If you put on any embroidery of your own, I ‘ll detect it at once, and out you go, Master O’Reardon, notwithstanding all your long services and all your loyalty.”

“Practical, upon my conscience, – always practical,” said the fellow, with a grin of keen approval.

“One caution more; I’m a tolerably good friend to the man who serves me faithfully. When things go well, I reward liberally; but if a fellow doubles on me, if he plays me false, I ‘ll back myself to be the worst enemy he ever met with. That’s practical, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed, sir, – nothing more so.”

“I’ll expect you to begin your visits on Thursday, then. Don’t come to the hall-door, but pass round by the end of the house and into the little garden. I ‘ll leave the gate open, and you ‘ll find my room easily. It opens on the garden. Be with me by eleven.”

Colonel Sewell was not more than just to himself when he affirmed that he read men very quickly. As the practised cashier never hesitates about the genuineness of a note, but detects the forgery at a glance, this man had an instinctive appreciation of a scoundrel. Who knows if there be not some magnetic affinity between such natures, that saves them the process of thought and reason? He was right in the present case. O’Reardon was the very man he wanted. The fellow liked the life of a spy and an informer. To track, trace, connect this with that, and seek out the missing link which gave connection to the chain, had for him the fascination of a game, and until now his qualities had never been fairly appreciated. It was with pride too that he showed his patron that his gifts could be more widely exercised than within the narrow limits of an antechamber; for he brought him the name of the man who wrote in “The Starlight” the last abusive article on the Chief Baron, and had date and place for the visit of the same man to the under-secretary, Mr. Cholmondely Balfour. He gave him the latest news of the Curragh, and how Faunus had cut his frog in a training gallop, and that it was totally impossible he could be “placed” for his race. There were various delicate little scandals in the life of society too, which, however piquant to Sewell’s ears, would have no interest for us; while of the sums lost at play, and the costly devices to raise the payments, even Sewell himself was amazed at the accuracy and extent of his information.

Mr. O’Reardon was one of a small knot of choice spirits who met every night and exchanged notes. Doubtless each had certain “reserves” which he kept strictly to himself; but otherwise they dealt very frankly and loyally with each other, well aware that it was only on such a foundation their system could be built; and the training-groom, and the butler, and the club-waiter, the office messenger, and the penny-postman became very active and potent agents in that strange drama we call life.

Now, though Mr. O’Reardon had presented himself each morning with due punctuality at the little garden, in which he was wont to make his report while Sewell smoked his morning cigar, for some days back the Colonel had not appeared. He had gone down to the country to a pigeon-match, from which he returned vexed and disappointed. He had shot badly, lost his money, lost his time, and lost his temper, – even to the extent of quarrelling with a young fellow whom he had long been speculating on “rooking,” and from whom he had now parted on terms that excluded further acquaintance.