Castle Richmond Part 68

The gentleman appealed to p.r.o.nounced the name for the judge's hearing with a full rolling Irish brogue, that gave great delight through all the court; "R-rowland Hough-h-ton, me lor-r-d."

Whereupon his lordship threw up his hands in dismay. "Oulan Outan!"

said he. "Oulan Outan! I never heard such a name in my life!" And then, having thoroughly impaled the wicked witness, and added materially to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the day, the judge wrote down the name in his book; and there it is to this day, no doubt, Oulan Outan.

And when one thinks of it, it was monstrous that an English witness should go into an Irish law court with such a name as Rowland Houghton.

But here, in the dark dingy court to which Herbert had penetrated in Lincoln's Inn, there was no such life as this. Here, whatever skill there might be, was of a dark subterranean nature, quite unintelligible to any minds but those of experts; and as for fury or fun, there was no spark either of one or of the other. The judge sat back in his seat, a tall, handsome, speechless man, not asleep, for his eye from time to time moved slowly from the dingy barrister who was on his legs to another dingy barrister who was sitting with his hands in his pockets, and with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling. The gentleman who was in the act of pleading had a huge open paper in his hand, from which he droned forth certain legal quiddities of the dullest and most uninteresting nature. He was in earnest, for there was a perpetual energy in his drone, as a droning bee might drone who was known to drone louder than other drones. But it was a continuous energy supported by perseverance, and not by impulse; and seemed to come of a fixed determination to continue the reading of that paper till all the world should be asleep. A great part of the world around was asleep; but the judge's eye was still open, and one might say that the barrister was resolved to go on till that eye should have become closed in token of his success.

Herbert remained there for an hour, thinking that he might learn something that would be serviceable to him in his coming legal career; but at the end of the hour the same thing was going on,--the judge's eye was still open, and the lawyer's drone was still sounding; and so he came away, having found himself absolutely dozing in the uncomfortable position in which he was standing.

At last the day wore away, and at seven o'clock he found himself in Mr. Prendergast's hall in Bloomsbury Square; and his hat and umbrella were taken away from him by an old servant looking very much like Mr.

Prendergast himself;--having about him the same look of the stiffness of years, and the same look also of excellent preservation and care.

"Mr. Prendergast is in the library, sir, if you please," said the old servant; and so saying he ushered Herbert into the back down-stairs room. It was a s.p.a.cious, lofty apartment, well fitted up for a library, and furnished for that purpose with exceeding care;--such a room as one does not find in the flashy new houses in the west, where the dining-room and drawing-room occupy all of the house that is visible. But then, how few of those who live in flashy new houses in the west require to have libraries in London!

As he entered the room Mr. Prendergast came forward to meet him, and seemed heartily glad to see him. There was a cordiality about him which Herbert had never recognized at Castle Richmond, and an appearance of enjoyment which had seemed to be almost foreign to the lawyer's nature. Herbert perhaps had not calculated, as he should have done, that Mr. Prendergast's mission in Ireland had not admitted of much enjoyment. Mr. Prendergast had gone there to do a job of work, and that he had done, very thoroughly; but he certainly had not enjoyed himself.

There was time for only few words before the old man again entered the room, announcing dinner; and those few words had no reference whatever to the Castle Richmond sorrow. He had spoken of Herbert's lodging, and of his journey, and a word or two of Mr. Die, and then they went in to dinner. And at dinner too the conversation wholly turned upon indifferent matters, upon reform at Oxford, the state of parties, and of the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the Irish Low Church clergymen, on all of which subjects Herbert found that Mr.

Prendergast had a tolerably strong opinion of his own. The dinner was very good, though by no means showy,--as might have been expected in a house in Bloomsbury Square--and the wine excellent, as might have been expected in any house inhabited by Mr. Prendergast.

And then, when the dinner was over, and the old servant had slowly removed his last tray, when they had each got into an arm-chair, and were seated at properly comfortable distances from the fire, Mr.

Prendergast began to talk freely; not that he at once plunged into the middle of the old history, or began with lugubrious force to recapitulate the horrors that were now partly over; but gradually he veered round to those points as to which he thought it good that he should speak before setting Herbert at work on his new London life.

"You drink claret, I suppose?" said Mr. Prendergast, as he adjusted a portion of the table for their evening symposium.

"Oh yes," said Herbert, not caring very much at that moment what the wine was.

"You'll find that pretty good; a good deal better than what you'll get in most houses in London nowadays. But you know a man always likes his own wine, and especially an old man."

Herbert said something about it being very good, but did not give that attention to the matter which Mr. Prendergast thought that it deserved. Indeed, he was thinking more about Mr. Die and Stone Buildings than about the wine.

"And how do you find my old friend Mrs. Whereas?" asked the lawyer.

"She seems to be a very attentive sort of woman."

"Yes; rather too much so sometimes. People do say that she never knows how to hold her tongue. But she won't rob you, nor yet poison you; and in these days that is saying a very great deal for a woman in London." And then there was a pause, as Mr. Prendergast sipped his wine with slow complacency. "And we are to go to Mr. Die to-morrow, I suppose?" he said, beginning again. To which Herbert replied that he would be ready at any time in the morning that might be suitable.

"The sooner you get into harness the better. It is not only that you have much to learn, but you have much to forget also."

"Yes," said Herbert, "I have much to forget indeed; more than I can forget, I'm afraid, Mr. Prendergast."

"There is, I fancy, no sorrow which a man cannot forget; that is, as far as the memory of it is likely to be painful to him. You will not absolutely cease to remember Castle Richmond and all its circ.u.mstances; you will still think of the place and all the people whom you knew there; but you will learn to do so without the pain which of course you now suffer. That is what I mean by forgetting."

"Oh, I don't complain, sir."

"No, I know you don't; and that is the reason why I am so anxious to see you happy. You have borne the whole matter so well that I am quite sure that you will be able to live happily in this new life.

That is what I mean when I say that you will forget Castle Richmond."

Herbert bethought himself of Clara Desmond, and of the woman whom he had seen in the cabin, and reflected that even at present he had no right to be unhappy.

"I suppose you have no thought of going back to Ireland?" said Mr.

Prendergast.

"Oh, none in the least."

"On the whole I think you are right. No doubt a family connection is a great a.s.sistance to a barrister, and there would be reasons which would make attorneys in Ireland throw business into your hands at an early period of your life. Your history would give you an _eclat_ there, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, yes, perfectly; but I don't want that."

"No. It is a kind of a.s.sistance which in my opinion a man should not desire. In the first place, it does not last. A man so bouyed up is apt to trust to such support, instead of his own steady exertions; and the firmest of friends won't stick to a lawyer long if he can get better law for his money elsewhere."

"There should be no friendship in such matters, I think."

"Well, I won't say that. But the friendship should come of the service, not the service of the friendship. Good, hard, steady, and enduring work,--work that does not demand immediate acknowledgment and reward, but that can afford to look forward for its results,--it is that, and that only which in my opinion will insure to a man permanent success."

"It is hard though for a poor man to work so many years without an income," said Herbert, thinking of Lady Clara Desmond.

"Not hard if you get the price of your work at last. But you can have your choice. A moderate fixed income can now be had by any barrister early in life,--by any barrister of fair parts and sound acquirements. There are more barristers now filling salaried places than practising in the courts."

"But those places are given by favour."

"No; not so generally,--or if by favour, by that sort of favour which is as likely to come to you as to another. Such places are not given to incompetent young men because their fathers and mothers ask for them. But won't you fill your gla.s.s?"

"I am doing very well, thank you."

"You'll do better if you'll fill your gla.s.s, and let me have the bottle back. But you are thinking of the good old historical days when you talk of barristers having to wait for their incomes.

There has been a great change in that respect,--for the better, as you of course will think. Now-a-days a man is taken away from his boat-racing and his skittle-ground to be made a judge. A little law and a great fund of physical strength--that is the extent of the demand." And Mr. Prendergast plainly showed by the tone of his voice that he did not admire the wisdom of this new policy of which he spoke.

"But I suppose a man must work five years before he can earn anything," said Herbert, still despondingly; for five years is a long time to an expectant lover.

"Fifteen years of unpaid labour used not to be thought too great a price to pay for ultimate success," said Mr. Prendergast, almost sighing at the degeneracy of the age. "But men in those days were ambitious and patient."

"And now they are ambitious and impatient," suggested Herbert.

"Covetous and impatient might perhaps be the truer epithets," said Mr. Prendergast with grim sarcasm.

It is sad for a man to feel, when he knows that he is fast going down the hill of life, that the experience of old age is to be no longer valued nor its wisdom appreciated. The elderly man of this day thinks that he has been robbed of his chance in life. When he was in his full physical vigour he was not old enough for mental success. He was still winning his spurs at forty. But at fifty--so does the world change--he learns that he is past his work. By some unconscious and unlucky leap he has pa.s.sed from the unripeness of youth to the decay of age, without even knowing what it was to be in his prime. A man should always seize his opportunity; but the changes of the times in which he has lived have never allowed him to have one. There has been no period of flood in his tide which might lead him on to fortune.

While he has been waiting patiently for high water the ebb has come upon him. Mr. Prendergast himself had been a successful man, and his regrets, therefore, were philosophical rather than practical. As for Herbert, he did not look upon the question at all in the same light as his elderly friend, and on the whole was rather exhilarated by the tone of Mr. Prendergast's sarcasm. Perhaps Mr. Prendergast had intended that such should be its effect.

The long evening pa.s.sed away cosily enough, leaving on Herbert's mind an impression that in choosing to be a barrister he had certainly chosen the n.o.blest walk of life in which a man could earn his bread.

Mr. Prendergast did not promise him either fame or fortune, nor did he speak by any means in high enthusiastic language; he said much of the necessity of long hours, of tedious work, of Amaryllis left by herself in the shade, and of Neaera's locks unheeded; but nevertheless he spoke in a manner to arouse the ambition and satisfy the longings of the young man who listened to him. There were much wisdom in what he did, and much benevolence also.

And then at about eleven o'clock, Herbert having sat out the second bottle of claret, betook himself to his bed at the lodgings over the covered way.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.