The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney Part 7

"Of Grosvenor Street you mean--the East India director?"

"Yes, his son; and that reminds me that the declaration in that everlasting exchequer case must be filed to-morrow. Confound it, how this flying about the country puts one out! I thought some one had kidnapped her son, or fired Compton Castle at least. By the way, I am much deceived if there isn't a wedding there before long."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, Miss Dalston with Sir Jasper's eldest hope."

"You don't mean it?"

"_They_ do at all events, and that is much more to the purpose. A fine young fellow enough, and sufficiently rich too"--

"All which rambling talk and anecdote," cried I, interrupting him, "means, if I have any skill in reading Mr. Ferret, that that gentleman, having some ulterior purpose in view, which I cannot for the moment divine, is determined to have this writ, and does not wish to be pestered with any argument on the subject. Be it so: it is your affair, not mine.

And now, as it is just upon three o'clock, let me see your affidavit."

I ran it over. "Rather loose this, Mr. Ferret, but I suppose it will do."

"Well, it _is_ rather loose, but I could not with safety sail much closer to the wind. By the by, I think you had better first apply for a rule to stay proceedings against the bail in that case of Turner; and after that is decided, just ask for this writ, off-hand as it were, and as a matter of course. His lordship may not then scrutinize the affidavit quite so closely as if he thought counsel had been brought to chambers purposely to apply for it."

"Cautious, Mr. Ferret! Well, come along, and I'll see what I can do."

The writ was obtained without difficulty; few questions were asked; and at my request the judge made it returnable immediately. By four o'clock, Mr. Ferret, who could fortunately sleep as well in a postchaise as in a feather-bed, was, as he had promised himself, on his road to Lancashire once more, where he had the pleasure of serving Major Brandon personally; at the same time tendering in due form the one shilling per mile fixed by the statute as preliminary traveling charges. The vituperative eloquence showered upon Mr. Ferret by the Major's lady was, I afterwards heard, extremely copious and varied, and was borne by him, as I could easily believe, with the most philosophic composure.

In due time the parties appeared before Mr. Justice Bailey. Miss Brandon was accompanied by her uncle, his wife, and a solicitor; and spite of everything I could urge, the judge, as I had forseen, refused to interfere in the matter. The poor girl was dreadfully agitated, but kept, nevertheless, her eyes upon Mr. Ferret, as the source from which, spite of what was pa.s.sing around her, effectual succor was sure to come. As for that gentleman himself, he appeared composedly indifferent to the proceedings; and indeed, I thought, seemed rather relieved than otherwise when they terminated. I could not comprehend him. Mrs. Brandon, the instant the case was decided, clutched Clara's arm within hers, and, followed by her husband and the solicitor, sailed out of the apartment with an air of triumphant disdain and pride. Miss Brandon looked round for Ferret, but not perceiving him--he had left hastily an instant or two before--her face became deadly pale, and the most piteous expression of hopeless despair I had ever beheld broke from her troubled but singularly-expressive eyes. I mechanically followed, with a half-formed purpose of remonstrating with Major Brandon in behalf of the unfortunate girl, and was by that means soon in possession of the key to Mr. Ferret's apparently inexplicable conduct.

The Brandon party walked very fast, and I had scarcely got up with them as they were turning out of Chancery Lane into Fleet Street, when two men, whose vocation no accustomed eye could for an instant mistake, arrested their further progress. "This lady," said one of the men, slightly touching Miss Brandon on the shoulder, "is, I believe, Clara Brandon?"

"Yes she is; and what of that, fellow?" demanded the major's lady with indignant emphasis.

"Not much, ma'am," replied the sheriff's officer, "when you are used to it. It is my unpleasant duty to arrest her for the sum of eighty-seven pounds, indorsed on this writ, issued at the suit of one Susan Hopley."

"Arrest her!" exclaimed Mrs. Brandon; "why, she is a minor!"

"Minor or major, ma'am, makes very little difference to us. She can plead that hereafter, you know. In the meantime, miss, please to step into this coach," replied the officer, holding the door open.

"But she's a person of unsound mind," screamed the lady, as Clara, nothing loath, sprang into the vehicle.

"So are most people that do business with our establishment," responded the imperturbable official, as he shut and fastened the door. "Here is my card, sir," he added, addressing the attorney, who now came up. "You see where to find the lady, if her friends wish to give bail to the sheriff, or, what is always more satisfactory, pay the debt and costs." He then jumped on the box, his follower got up behind, and away drove the coach, leaving the discomfited major and his fiery better-half in a state of the blankest bewilderment!

"Why, what _is_ the meaning of this?" at length gasped Mrs. Brandon, fiercely addressing the attorney, as if _he_, were a _particeps criminis_ in the affair.

"The meaning, my dear madame, is, that Miss Clara Brandon is arrested for debt, and carried off to a sponging-house; and that unless you pay the money, or file bail, she will tomorrow be lodged in jail," replied the unmoved man of law.

"Bail! money! How are we to do either in London, away from home?"

demanded the major with, for him, much emotion.

I did not wait to hear more, but, almost suffocated with laughter at the success of Ferret's audacious _ruse_, hastened over to the Temple. I was just leaving chambers for the night--about ten o'clock I think it must have been--when Ferret, in exuberant spirits, burst into the room.

"Well, sir, what do you think _now_ of a writ _ad sub._?"

"Why, I think, Mr. Ferret," replied I, looking as serious as I could, "that yours is very sharp practice; that the purpose you have put it to is an abuse of the writ; that the arrest is consequently illegal; and that a judge would, upon motion, quash it with costs."

"To be sure he would: who doubts that? Let him, and welcome! In the meantime, Clara Brandon is safe beyond the reach of all the judges or chancellors that ever wore horsehair, and that everlasting simpleton of a major and his harridan wife roaming the metropolis like distracted creatures; and that I take to be the real essence of the thing, whatever the big-wigs may decide about the sh.e.l.ls!"

"I suppose the plaintiff soon discharged her debtor out of custody?"

"Without loss of time, you may be sure. Miss Brandon, I may tell _you_, is with the Rev. Mr. Derwent at Brompton. You know him: the newly-married curate of St. Margaret's that was examined in that will case. Well him: he is an intelligent, high-principled man; and I have no doubt that, under his and Mrs. Derwent's care, all trace of Miss Brandon's mental infirmity will disappear long before she attains her majority next June twelvemonth; whilst the liberal sum per month which Lady Compton will advance, will be of great service to him"

"That appears all very good. But are you sure you can effectually conceal the place of her retreat?"

"I have no fear: the twigs that will entangle her precious guardians in the labyrinths of a false clue are already set and limed. Before to-morrow night they will have discovered, by means of their own wonderfully-penetrative sagacity, that Clara has been spirited over to France; and before three months are past, the same surprising intelligence will rejoice in the discovery that she expired in a _maison de sante_--fine comfortable repose, in which fool's paradise I hope to have the honor of awakening them about next June twelvemonth, and not as at present advised before!"

Everything fortunately turned out as Mr. Ferret antic.i.p.ated; and when a few months had glided by, Clara Brandon was a memory only, save of course to the few entrusted with the secret.

The whirligig of time continued as ever to speed on its course, and bring round in due season its destined revenges. The health, mental and bodily, of Miss Brandon rapidly improved under the kind and judicious treatment of Mr. and Mrs. Derwent; and long before the attainment of her majority, were p.r.o.nounced by competent authority to be thoroughly re-established.

The day following that which completed her twentyfirst year, Mr. Ferret, armed with the necessary authority, had the pleasure of announcing to the relict of Major Brandon (he had been dead some months), and to her brutal son, that they must forthwith depart from the home in which they, to the very moment of his announcement, thought themselves secure; and surrender every shilling of the property they had so long dreamt was their own.

They were prostrated by the intelligence, and proved as mean and servile in the hour of adversity, as they had been insolent and cruel in the day of fancied success and prosperity. The pension of three hundred pounds a year for both their lives, proffered by Miss Brandon, was eagerly accepted; and they returned to the obscurity from which they had by accident emerged.

About six months afterwards, I had the pleasure of drawing up the marriage settlement between Clara Brandon and Herbert Burford; and a twelvemonth after, that of standing sponsor to one of the l.u.s.tiest brats ever sprinkled at a font: none of which delightful results, if we are to believe Mr. Ferret, would have ever been arrived at had not he, at a very critical moment, refused to take counsel's opinion upon the virtues, capabilities, and powers contained in the great writ of _habeas corpus ad subjiciendum_.

ESTHER MASON.

About forty years ago, Jabez Woodford, a foreman of shipwrights in the Plymouth dockyard, whilst carelessly crossing one of the transverse beams of a seventy-four gun-ship, building in that a.r.s.enal, missed his footing, fell to the bottom of the hold of the huge vessel, and was killed on the spot. He left a widow and one child--a boy seven years of age, of placid, endearing disposition, but weak intellect--almost in a state of dest.i.tution. He had been a coa.r.s.e-tempered, improvident man; and like too many of his cla.s.s, in those days at least, dissipated the whole of his large earnings in present sensuous indulgence, utterly careless or unmindful of the future. Esther Woodford, who, at the time of her husband's death, scarcely numbered five-and-twenty years, was still a remarkably comely, as well as interesting, gentle-mannered person; and moreover had, for her station in life, received a tolerable education.

Her rash, ill-a.s.sorted marriage with Woodford had been hastily contracted when she was barely seventeen years of age, in consequence of a jealous pique which she, for some silly reason or other, had conceived regarding Henry Mason, an intelligent, young seafaring man, of fair prospects in life, and frank disposition, with whom she had for some time previously, as the west-country phrase has it, "kept company," and who was, moreover, tenderly attached to her. Esther's married life was one long repentance of the rash act; and the severance of the tie which bound her to an ungenial mate--after the subsidence of the natural horror and compa.s.sion excited by the sudden and frightful nature of the catastrophe--must have been felt as a most blessed relief. A few weeks afterwards, she accepted an asylum with her brother-in-law, Davies, a market-gardener in the vicinity of Plymouth, where, by persevering industry with her needle, and thrifty helpfulness in her sister's household duties, she endeavored to compensate her kind-hearted relatives for the support of herself and helpless, half-witted child. Mason she had never seen since the day previous to her marriage; but she knew he was prospering in the busy world, and that, some time before her husband's death, he had been appointed chief-mate in a first-cla.s.s merchant-ship trading to the Pacific. He had sailed about a fortnight previous to that event; and now, ten lazy months having slowly floated past, the lover of her youth, with whom, in that last sunny day of her young life--how distant did it seem, viewed through the long intervening vista of days and nights of grief and tears!--she had danced so joyously beneath the flowering chestnut-trees, was once more near her; and it was--oh happiness!--no longer a sin to think of him--no longer a crime to recall and dwell upon the numberless proofs of the deep affection, the strong love, he had once felt for her.

_Once_ felt! Perhaps even now!--How swiftly had the intelligence communicated by her sympathizing sister tinted with bright hues the dark curtain of the future!

"And yet," murmured poor Esther, the flush of hope fading as suddenly as it had arisen, as with meek sad eyes she glanced at the reflection of her features in the small oval gla.s.s suspended above the mantel-piece--"I almost doubt, Susy, dear, if he would recognize me; even if old feelings and old times have not long since faded from his memory"--

"Stuff and trumpery about fading away!" broke in Mrs. Davies. "Henry Mason is the same true-hearted man he was eight years ago; and as a proof that he is, just read this letter, which I promised him to give you. There, don't go falling into a fl.u.s.tration; don't now, Esther, and to-morrow market-day and all! Don't cry, Esther," she added vehemently, but at the same time sobbing furiously herself, and throwing her arms round her sister's neck: "but perhaps--perhaps it will do us good, both of us!"

It may he necessary to state that I owe the foregoing particulars to the interest felt by my wife--herself a native of beautiful Devon--in the fortunes of this humble household. Esther was her foster-sister; and it happened that just at this period, it being vacation-time, we were paying a visit to a family in the neighborhood. A few hours after the receipt of the welcome letter, my wife chanced to call on Esther relative to some fancy needlework; and on her return, I was of course favored with very full and florid details of this little bit of cottage romance; the which I, from regard to the reader, have carefully noted down, and as briefly as possible expressed.

We met Henry Mason with his recovered treasure on the following evening; and certainly a more favorable specimen of the vigorous, active, bold-featured, frank-spoken British seaman I never met with. To his comparatively excellent education--for which I understood he was indebted to his mother, a superior woman, who, having fallen from one of the little heights of society, had kept a school at Plymouth--in addition to his correct and temperate habits, he was indebted for the rapid advance--he was but a few months older than Esther--he had obtained in the merchant service. The happiness which beamed upon Esther's face did not appear to be of the exuberant, buoyant character that kindled the ruddy cheek and ran over at the bright, honest eyes of the hardy sailor: there seemed to mingle with it a half-doubting, trembling apprehensiveness; albeit it was not difficult to perceive that, sorrowfully as had pa.s.sed her noon of prime, an "Indian summer" of the soul was rising upon her brightened existence, and already with its first faint flushes lighting up her meek, doubting eyes, and pale, changing countenance. w.i.l.l.y, her feeble-minded child, frisked and gambolled by their side; and altogether, a happier group than they would, I fancy, have been difficult to find in all broad England.

The next week they were married; and one of the partners in the firm by which Mason was employed happening to dine with us on the day of the wedding, the conversation turned for a few minutes on the bridegroom's character and prospects.

"He has the ring of true metal in him," I remarked; "and is, I should suppose, a capital seaman?"

"A first-rate one," replied Mr. Roberts. "Indeed so high is my father's opinion of him, that he intends to confer upon him the command of a fine brig now building for us in the Thames, and intended for the West India trade. He possesses also singular courage and daring. Twice, under very hazardous circ.u.mstances, he has successfully risked his life to save men who had fallen overboard. He is altogether a skilful, gallant seaman."

"Such a man," observed another of the company, "might surely have aspired higher than to the hand of Esther Woodford, dove-eyed and interesting as she may be?"

"Perhaps so," returned Mr. Roberts a little curtly; "though he, it seems, could not have thought so. Indeed it is chiefly of simple-hearted, chivalrous-minded men like Mason that it can be with general truth observed--

'On revient toujours a ses premiers amours.'"