The Story of Charles Strange Volume III Part 16

"He is old now. _I_ should retire."

"He is sixty-five. If you were not young yourself, you would not call that old."

"Old enough, I should say, for work to be a labour to him."

"A labour that he loves, and that he is as capable of performing as he was twenty years ago," returned old Jones. "No, Mr. Charles, I do not wonder that he should continue to work."

"Did you know that he had been offered a judgeship?"

Old Jones laughed a little. I thought it was as much as to say there was little which concerned the Serjeant that he did not know.

"He has been offered a judgeship more than once--had it pressed upon him, Mr. Charles. The last time was when Mr. Baron Charlton died."

"Why! that is only a month or two ago!"

"Just about nine weeks, I fancy."

"And he declined it?"

"He declines them all."

"But what can be his motive? It would give him more rest than he enjoys now----"

"I don't altogether know that," interrupted the clerk. "The judges are very much over-worked now. It would increase his responsibility; and he is one to feel that, perhaps painfully."

"You mean when he had to pa.s.s the dread sentence of death. A new judge must always feel that at the beginning."

"I heard one of our present judges say--it was in this room, too, Mr.

Charles--that the first time he put on the black cap he never closed his eyes the whole night after it. All the Bench are not so sensitive as that, you know."

A thought suddenly struck me. "Surely," I cried, "you do not mean that _that_ is the reason for my uncle's refusing a seat on the Bench!"

"Not at all. He'd get over that in time, as others do. Oh no! that has nothing to do with it."

"Then I really cannot see what can have to do with it. It would give him a degree of rest; yes, it would; and it would give him rank and position."

"But it would take from him half his income. Yes, just about half, I reckon," repeated Mr. Jones, attentively regarding the feather of the pen.

"What of that? He must be putting by heaps and heaps of money--and he has neither wife nor child to put by for."

"Ah!" said the clerk, "that is just how we all are apt to judge of a neighbour's business. Would it surprise you very much, sir, if I told you that the Serjeant is _not_ putting by?"

"But he must be putting by. Or what becomes of his money?"

"He spends it, Mr. Charles."

"_Spends it!_ Upon what?"

"Upon other people."

Mr. Jones looked at me from across the hearthrug, and I looked at him.

The a.s.sertion puzzled me.

"It's true," he said with a nod. "You have not forgotten that great calamity which happened some ten or twelve years ago, Mr. Charles?

That bank which went to pieces, and broke up homes and hearts? _Your_ money went in it."

As if I could forget that!

"The Serjeant's money, all he had then saved, went in it," continued the clerk. "Mortifying enough, of course, but he was in the full swing of his prosperity, and could soon have replaced it. What he could not so easily replace, Mr. Charles, was the money he had been the means of placing in the bank belonging to other people, and which was lost.

He had done it for the best. He held the bank to be thoroughly sound and prosperous; he could not have had more confidence in his own integrity than he had in that bank; and he had counselled friends and others whom he knew, who were not as well off as he was, to invest all they could spare in it, believing he was doing them a kindness.

Instead of that, it ruined them."

I thought I saw what the clerk was coming to. After a pause, he went on:

"It is these people that he has been working for, Mr. Charles. Some of them he has entirely repaid--the money, you know, which he caused them to lose. He considered it his duty to recompense them, so far as he could; and to keep them, where they needed to be kept, until he had effected that. For those who were better off and did not need present help, he put money by as he could spare it, investing it in the funds in their name: I dare say your name is amongst them. That's what Mr.

Serjeant Stillingfar does with his income, and that's why he keeps on working."

I had never suspected this.

"I believe it is almost accomplished now," said the clerk. "So nearly that I thought he might, perhaps, have taken the judgeship on this last occasion. But he did not. 'Just a few months longer in harness, Jones,' he said to me, 'and then----?' So I reckon that we shall yet see him on the Bench, Mr. Charles."

"He must be very good."

"Good!" echoed old Jones, with emotion; "he is made of goodness. There are few people like him. He would help the whole world if he could. I don't believe there's any man who has ever done a single service for him of the most trifling nature but he would wish to place beyond the reach of poverty. 'I've put a trifle by for you, Jones,' he said to me the other day, 'in case you might be at a loss for another such place as this when my time's over.' And when I tried to thank him----"

Mr. Jones broke down. Bringing the quill pen under his eyes, as if he suddenly caught sight of a flaw thereon, I saw a drop of water fall on to it.

"Yes, Mr. Charles, he said that to me. It has taken a load from my mind. When a man is on the downhill of life and is not sure of his future, he can't help being anxious. The Serjeant has paid me a liberal salary, as you may well guess, but he knows that it has not been in my power to put by a fraction of it. 'You are too generous with your money, Serjeant,' I said to him one day, a good while ago.

'Ah no, Jones, not at all,' he answered. 'G.o.d has prospered me so marvellously in these later years, what can I do but strive to prosper others?' Those were his very words."

And with these last words of Jones's our conference came to an end.

The door was abruptly thrown open by Graham to admit the Serjeant. Mr.

Jones helped him off with his wig and gown, and handed him the little flaxen top that he wore when not on duty. Then Jones, leaving the room for a few moments, came back with a gla.s.s of milk, which he handed to his master.

"Would not a gla.s.s of wine do you more good, uncle?" I asked.

"No, lad; not so much. A gla.s.s of milk after a hard day's work in Court refreshes me. I never touch wine except at a dinner. I take a little then; not much."

Sitting down together when Mr. Jones had again left us, I opened my business to the Serjeant as concisely as possible. He listened attentively, but made no remark until the end.

"Now go over it all again, Charles." I did so: and this second time I was repeatedly interrupted by remarks or questions. After that we discussed the case.

"I cannot see any reason why you should not take up the matter," he said, when he had given it a little silent consideration. "I do not look upon it quite as you do; I think you have formed a wrong judgment. It is intricate at present; I grant you that; but if you proceed in the manner I have suggested, you will unravel it."

"Thank you, Uncle Stillingfar. I can never thank you enough for all your kindness to me."

"Were you so full of anxiety over this case?" he asked, as we were shaking hands, and I was about to leave. "You look as though you had a weight of it on your brow."

"And so I have, uncle; but not about this case. Something nearer home."