Volume I Part 24 (1/2)
”Sir, there is no case before the court,” said the Judge. ”I can hear you, as a matter of courtesy; but it cannot be your object to be listened to on such terms?”
”I will accept even so little. If it should prove that the view taken by his Excellency is the correct one--pray, sir, let me proceed--”
”I cannot; I have no temper for a baseless hypothesis. I will not, besides, abuse your time any more than my own forbearance; and I therefore say that if any portion of your interest in making my acquaintance concerns that question you have so promptly broached, the minutes employed in the discussion would be thrown away by us both.”
”Mr. Haire,” said the servant, at this moment; and the Chief Baron's old friend entered, rather heated by his walk.
”You are late by half an hour, Haire; let me present you to Sir Brook Fossbrooke, whose acquaintance I am now honored in making. Sir Brook is under a delusive impression, Haire, which I told you a few days ago would demand some decisive step on my part; he thinks that the vacant registrars.h.i.+p is at the disposal of the Crown.”
”I ask pardon,” said Fossbrooke. ”As I understood his Excellency, they only claim the alternate appointment.”
”And they shall not a.s.sert even that, sir.”
”Sir William's case is strong,--it is irrefutable. I have gone over it myself,” broke in Haire.
”There, sir! listen to that. You have now wherewithal to go back and tell the Viceroy that the opinion of the leading man of the Irish Bar has decided against his claim. Tell him, sir, that accident timed your visit here at the same moment with my distinguished friend's, and that you in this way obtained a spontaneous decision on the matter at issue.
When you couple with that judgment the name of William Haire, you will have said enough.”
”I bow to this great authority,” said Sir Brook, with deep courtesy, ”and accepting your Lords.h.i.+p's statement to the fullest, I would only add, that as it was his Excellency's desire to have named me to this office, might I so far presume, on the loss of the good fortune that I had looked for, to approach you with a request, only premising that it is not on my own behalf?”
”I own, sir, that I do not clearly appreciate the t.i.tle to your claim.
You are familiar with the turf, Sir Brook, and you know that it is only the second horse has a right to demand his entry.”
”I have not been beaten, my Lord. You have scratched my name and prevented my running.”
”Let us come back to fact, sir,” said the Chief Baron, not pleased with the retort. ”How can you base any right to approach me with a request on the circ.u.mstance that his Excellency desired to give you what belonged to another?”
”Yes, that puts it forcibly--unanswerably--to my thinking,” said Haire.
”I may condole with disappointment, sir, but I am not bound to compensate defeat,” said the old Judge; and he arose and walked the room with that irritable look and manner which even the faintest opposition to him often evoked, and for which even the utterance of a flippant rebuke but partly compensated him.
”I take it, my Lord Chief Baron,” said Fossbrooke, calmly, ”that I have neither asked for condolence nor compensation. I told you, I hoped distinctly that what I was about to urge was not on my own behalf.”
”Well, sir, and I think the plea is only the less sustainable. The Viceroy's letter might give a pretext for the one; there is nothing in our acquaintance would warrant the other.”
”If you knew, sir, how determined I am not to take offence at words which certainly imperil patience, you would possibly spare me some of these asperities. I am in close relations of friends.h.i.+p with your grandson; he is at present living with me; I have pledged myself to his father to do my utmost in securing him some honorable livelihood, and it is in his behalf that I have presented myself before you to-day. Will you graciously accord me a hearing on this ground?”
There was a quiet dignity of manner in which he said this, a total forgetfulness of self, and a manly simplicity of purpose so palpable, that the old Judge felt he was in presence of one whose character called for all his respect; at the same time he was not one to be suddenly carried away by a sentiment, and in a very measured voice he replied, ”If I 'm flattered, sir, by the interest you take in a member of my family, I am still susceptible of a certain displeasure that it should be a stranger should stand before me to ask me for any favor to my own.”
”I am aware, my Lord Chief Baron, that my position is a false one, but so is your own.”
”Mine, sir! mine? What do you mean? Explain yourself.”
”If your Lords.h.i.+p's interest had been exerted as it might have been, Dr. Lendrick's son would never have needed so humble a friend as he has found in me.”
”And have you come here, sir, to lecture me on my duty to my family?
Have you presented yourself under the formality of a viceregal letter of introduction to tell a perfect stranger to you how he should have demeaned himself to his own?”