Kitabı oku: «The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)», sayfa 12

CHAPTER XV. A FIRST BRIEF

The reader has been already told that Joe Nelligan had achieved a great success in his first case. A disputed point of law had been raised, in itself insignificant, but involving in its train a vast variety of momentous interests. Repton, with an ingenuity all his own, had contrived to draw the discussion beyond its original limits, that he might entangle and embarrass the ambitious junior who had dared to confute him. Nelligan accepted the challenge at once, and after a stormy discussion of some hours came out the victor. For a while his timid manner, and an overpowering sense of the great odds against him, seemed to weigh oppressively on him. The very successes he had won elsewhere were really so many disparagements to him now, giving promise, as it were, of his ability. But, despite all these disadvantages, he entered the lists manfully and courageously.

What a many-sided virtue is this same courage, and how prone is the world to award its praises unequally for it! We are enthusiastic for the gallant soldier the earliest in the breach, or the glorious sailor who first jumps upon the enemy’s quarter-deck, and yet we never dream of investing with heroism him who dares to combat with the most powerful intellects of debate, or enters the field of argument against minds stored with vast resources of knowledge, and practised in all the subtleties of disputation.

It is time, existence is not in the issue; but are there not things a thousand times dearer than life at peril? Think of him who has gone on from success to success; whose school triumphs have but heralded the riper glories of college life; who, rising with each new victory, is hailed by that dearest and best of all testimonies, – the prideful enthusiasm of his own age. Fancy him, the victor in every struggle, who has carried all before him, – the vaunted chief of his contemporaries, – fancy him beaten and worsted on his first real field of action. Imagine such a man, with all the prestige of his college fame, rudely encountered and overcome in the contest of public life, and say if any death ever equalled the suffering!

Happily, our task has not to record any such failure in the present case. Young Nelligan sat down amidst the buzzing sound of approving voices, and received a warm eulogy from the Court on the promise of so conspicuous an opening. And a proud man was Dan Nelligan on that day! At any other time how deeply honored had he felt by the distinguished notice of the great dignitaries who now congratulated him on his son’s success! With what pride had he accepted the polite recognition of Chief Barons and silk-gowned “leaders”! Now, however, his heart had but room for one thought, – Joe himself, – his own boy, – the little child as it were of yesterday, now a man of mark and note, already stamped with the impress of success in what, to every Irishman’s heart at least, is the first of all professions. The High Sheriff shook old Nelligan’s hand in open court, and said, “It is an honor to our county, Nelligan, to claim him.” The Judge sent a message that he wished to see him in his robing-room, and spoke his warm praises of the “admirable speech, as remarkable for its legal soundness as for its eloquence;” and Repton overtook him in the street, and, catching his hand, said, “Be proud of him, sir, for we are all proud of him.”

Mayhap the hope is not a too ambitious one, that some one of those who may glance over these humble lines may himself have once stood in the position of Joe Nelligan, in so far as regards the hour of his triumph, and have felt in his heart the ecstasy of covering with his fame the “dear head” of a father.

If so, I ask him boldly, – whatever may have been the high rewards of his later fire, whatever honors may have been showered upon him, however great his career, and however brilliant its recognitions, – has he ever, in his proudest moments, tasted such a glorious thrill of delight as when he has fallen into his father’s arms overcome by the happiness that he has made that father proud of him? Oh, ye who have experienced this thrill of joy within you, cherish and preserve it. The most glowing eulogies of eloquence, the most ornate paragraphs of a flattering press, are sorry things in comparison to it. For ourselves, we had rather have been Joe Nelligan when, with his father’s warm tears dimming his eyes, he said, “God bless you, my boy!” than have gained all the honors that even talents like his can command!

He could not bear to absent himself from home that day; and although his father would gladly have celebrated his triumph by gathering his friends about him, Joe entreated that they might be alone. And they were so. The great excitement of the day over, a sense of weariness, almost sadness, stole over the young man; and while his father continued to relate for his mother’s hearing various little incidents of the trial, he listened with a half-apathetic dreaminess, as though the theme oppressed him. The old man dwelt with delight on the flattering attention bestowed by the Court on Joseph’s address, the signs of concurrence vouchsafed from time to time by the Bench, the approving murmur of the Bar while he spoke, and then the honest outburst of enthusiasm that shook the very walls as he concluded. “I tried,” continued Dan Nelligan, – “I tried to force my way through the crowd, and come and tell you that he had gained the day, but I couldn’t; they were all around me, shaking my hands, patting me on the shoulders, and saying, as if I did n’t know it in my own heart, ‘He ‘ll make you a proud man yet, Mr. Nelligan.’”

“I heard it all, five minutes after it was over,” said Mrs. Nelligan; “and you ‘d never guess who told me.”

“Counsellor Walsh,” cried Nelligan.

“No, indeed; I never seen him.”

“It was Hosey Lynch, then, for I saw him running like mad through the town, spreading the news everywhere.”

“It was not Hosey,” said she, half contemptuously. “I wish, Joe, you’d give a guess yourself who told me.”

“Guess, mother, – guess who told you what?” said he, suddenly starting from some deep meditation.

“Who told me that you won the cause, and beat all the great counsellors from Dublin.”

“I’m sure, mother, it would be hard for me to say,” said Joseph, smiling faintly; “some of our kind townsfolk, perhaps. Father Neal, old Peter Hayes, or – ”

“I’ll just tell you at once,” broke she in, half irritated at the suggested source of her information. “It was Miss Mary herself, and no other.”

“Miss Martin!” exclaimed old Nelligan.

“Miss Mary Martin!” echoed Joe; while a sickly paleness crept over his features, and his lips trembled as he spoke.

“How came you to see her? Where was she?” asked Nelligan, eagerly.

“I ‘ll tell you,” replied she, with all the methodical preparation by which she heralded in the least important communications, – “I ‘ll tell you. I was sitting here, working at the window, and wondering when the trial would be over, for the goose that was for dinner was too near the fire, and I said to myself – ”

“Never mind what you said to yourself, – confound the goose,” broke in old Dan, fiercely.

“Faith, then, I ‘d like to know if you ‘d be pleased to eat your dinner on the cold loin of veal – ”

“But Miss Martin, mother, – Miss Martin,” urged Joe, impatiently.

“I’m coming to her, if you’ll let me; but when you flurry me and frighten me, I ‘m ready to faint. It was last Candlemas you gave me a start, Dan, about – what was it, now? Lucky Mason’s dog, I believe. No, it was the chimney took fire – ”

“Will you just go back to Miss Martin, if you please,” said old Nelligan, sternly.

“I wish I knew where I was, – what I was saying last,” said she, in a tone of deep sorrow and contrition.

“You were going to say how Miss Mary told you all about the trial, mother,” said Joe, taking her hand kindly within his own.

“Yes, darling; now I remember it all. I was sitting here at the window hemming them handkerchiefs of yours, and I heard a sharp sound of a horse coming along quick, and, by the way he cantered, I said to myself, ‘I know you,’ and, sure enough, when I opened the window, there she was, Miss Mary herself, all dripping with wet, and her hat flattened on her face, at the door.

“‘Don’t ask me to get down, Mrs. Nelligan,’ said she, ‘for I’m in a great hurry. I have to ride out to Kilkieran with this’ – and she showed me a bottle she had in the pocket of her saddle. ‘I only called to tell you that your son has gained another – ’ What was it she called it? – a victory, or a battle, – no, it was something else – ”

“Never mind – go on,” cried Joe; “and then?”

“‘But, my dear Miss Mary,’ says I, ‘you ‘re wet through and through. It’s more than your life’s worth to go off now another ten miles. I’ll send our gossoon, Mickey Slater, with the medicine, if you ‘ll just come in and stay with us.’ I did n’t say to dinner, for I was ashamed to ask her to that.

“‘I should be delighted, Mrs. Nelligan,’ said she, ‘but it is impossible to-day. I ‘d have stayed and asked you for my dinner,’ – her very words, – ‘asked you for my dinner, but I have promised poor Mat Landy to go back to him. But perhaps it is as well as it is; and my aunt Dorothy might say, if she heard of it, that it was a strange choice I had made of a festive occasion, – the day on which we were beaten, and the society of him that worsted us.’

“‘Oh, but, Miss Mary,’ says I, ‘sure you don’t think the worse of poor Joe – ’

“‘I never thought more highly of him, my dear Mrs. Nelligan,’ said she, ‘than at this moment; and, whatever others may say or think, I’ll maintain my opinion, that he is a credit to us all. Good-bye! good-bye!’ and then she turned short round, and said, ‘I can’t answer for how my uncle may feel about what has occurred to-day, but you know my sentiments. Farewell!’ And with that she was off; indeed, before I had time to shut down the window, she was out of sight and away.”

“She ought to know, and she will know, that Joe never said one hard thing of her family. And though he had in his brief enough to tempt him to bring the Martins up for judgment, not a word, not a syllable did he utter.” This old Nelligan spoke with a proud consciousness of his son’s honorable conduct.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Joe, “is it not enough that a man sells his intellect, pawns his capacity, and makes traffic of his brains, without being called on to market his very nature, and set up his very emotions for sale? If my calling demands this at my hands, I have done with it, – I renounce it.”

“But I said you refrained, Joe. I remarked that you would not suffer the heat of discussion to draw you into an angry attack – ”

“And you praise me for it!” broke in Joe, passionately. “You deem it an occasion to compliment me, that, in defending the cause of a worthless debauchee, I did not seize with avidity the happy moment to assail an honorable gentleman; and not alone you, but a dozen others, congratulated me on this reserve, – this constraint, – as though the lawyer were but a bravo, and, his stiletto once paid for, he must produce the body of his victim. I regard my profession in another and a higher light; but if even its practice were the noblest that could engage human faculties, and its rewards the highest that could crown them, I’d quit it tomorrow, were its price to be the sacrifice of an honorable self-esteem and the regard of – of those we care for.” And in the difficult utterance of the last words his cheek became crimson, and his lip trembled.

“I ‘ll tell you what you ‘ll do, Joe,” said his mother, whose kindness was not invariably distinguished by tact, – “just come over with me to-morrow to Cro’ Martin. I ‘m going to get slips of the oak-leaf geranium and the dwarf rose, and we ‘ll just go together in a friendly way, and when we ‘re there you ‘ll have some opportunity or other to tell Miss Mary that it wasn’t your fault for being against them.”

“He ‘ll do no such thing,” broke in Nelligan, fiercely. “Miss Mary Martin wants no apologies, – her family have no right to any. Joe is a member of a high and powerful profession. If he does n’t fill as great a place now, who knows where he ‘ll not be this day fifteen years, eh, my boy? Maybe I ‘ll not be here to see, – indeed, it’s more than likely I ‘ll not, – but I know it now. I feel as sure of it as I do that my name ‘s Dan.”

“And if you are not to see it, father,” said Joe, as he pressed his father’s hand between both his own, – “you and my dearest mother, – the prize will be nigh valueless. If I cannot, when my reward is won, come home, – to such a home as this, – the victory will be too late.” And so saying he rose abruptly, and hurried from the room. The moment after he had locked his door, and, flinging himself upon his bed, buried his face between his hands.

With all the proud sensations of having achieved a great success, his heart was heavily oppressed. It seemed to him as though Destiny had decreed that his duty should ever place him in antagonism to his affections. Up to a short period before this trial came on he had frequently been in Miss Martin’s company. Now, it was some trifling message for his mother; now, some book he had himself promised to fetch her; then visits to the sick – and Joe, latterly, had taken a most benevolent turn – had constantly brought them together; and often, when Mary was on foot, Joe had accompanied her to the gates of the demesne. In these meetings one subject usually occupied them, – the sad condition of the country, the destitution of the poor, – and on this theme their sympathies and hopes and fears all agreed. It was not only that they concurred in their views of the national character, but that they attributed its traits of good or evil to the very same causes; and while Nelligan was amazed at finding the daughter of a proud house deeply conversant with the daily life of the humblest peasant, she, too, was astonished how sincere in his respect for rank, how loyal in his devotion to the claims of blood, was one whose birth might have proclaimed him a democrat and a destroyer.

These daily discussions led them closer and closer to each other, till at length confidences grew up between them, and Mary owned to many of the difficulties that her lone and solitary station exposed her to. Many things were done on the property without – some in direct opposition to – her concurrence. As she once said herself, “We are so ready to satisfy our consciences by assuming that whatever we may do legally we have a right to do morally, and at the same time, in the actual condition of Ireland, what is just may be practically the very heaviest of all hardships.” This observation was made with reference to some law proceedings of Scanlan’s instituting, and the day after she chanced to make it Joe started for Dublin. It was there that Magennis’s attorney had sent him the brief in that cause, – a charge which the etiquette of his profession precluded his declining.

In what way he discharged the trust we have seen, – what sorrow it cost him is more than we can describe. “Miss Martin,” thought he, “would know nothing of the rules which prescribe our practice, and will look upon my conduct here as a treason. For weeks long she has conversed with me in candor over the state of the county and its people; we separate for a few days, and she finds me arrayed with others against the interests of her family, and actually paid to employ against her the very knowledge she has imparted to me! What a career have I chosen,” cried he, in his agony, “if every success is to be purchased at such a price!” With such men as Magennis he had nothing in common; their society, their habits, their opinions were all distasteful to him, and yet it was for him and his he was to sacrifice the dearest hope of his heart, – to lose the good esteem of one whose praise he had accounted more costly than the highest distinction a sovereign could bestow on him. “And what a false position mine!” cried he again. “Associated by the very closest ties with a party not one of whose objects have my sympathies, I see myself separated by blood, birth, and station from all that I venerate and respect. I must either be a traitor to my own or to myself; declare my enmity to all I think most highly of, or suffer my motives to be impugned and my fame tarnished.”

There was, indeed, one circumstance in this transaction which displeased him greatly, and of which he was only aware when too late. The Magennis defence had been “got up” by a subscription, – a fund to which Joseph’s own father had contributed. Amongst the machinery of attack upon the landed gentry, Father Neal Rafferty had suggested the expediency of “putting them on their titles” in cases the most trivial and insignificant. Forfeiture and confiscation had followed each other so frequently in Irish history, – grants and revocations were so mixed up together, – some attested in all formality, others irregular and imperfect, – that it was currently believed there was scarcely one single estate of the whole province could establish a clear and indisputable title. The project was, therefore, a bold one which, while disturbing the rights of property, should also bring under discussion so many vexed questions of English rule and tyranny over the Irish. Libraries and cabinets were ransacked for ancient maps of the counties; and old records were consulted to ascertain how far the original conditions of service, and so forth, had been complied with on which these estates were held.

Joseph had frequently carried home books from the library of Cro’ Martin, rare and curious volumes, which bore upon the ancient history of the country. And now there crossed him the horrible suspicion that the whole scheme of this attack might be laid to his charge, the information to substantiate which he had thus surreptitiously-obtained. It was clear enough, from what his mother had said, that such was not Miss Martin’s present impression; but who could say what representations might be made to her, and what change effected in her sentiments? “And this,” cried he, in indignation – “and this is the great career I used to long for! – this the broad highway I once fancied was to lead me to honor and distinction! Or is it, after all, my own fault, for endeavoring to reconcile two-things which never can have any agreement, – an humble origin and high aspirings? Were I an Englishman, the difficulty would not be impassable; but here, in Ireland, the brand of a lowly fortune and a despised race is upon me. Can I – dare I resist it?”

A long and arduous conflict was that in which he passed the night, – now inclining to abandon his profession forever, now to leave Ireland and join the English or some Colonial Bar; and at length, as day was breaking, and as though the fresh morning air which now blew upon him from his open window had given fresh energy to his nature, he determined he would persist in his career in his own country. “My fate shall be an example or a warning!” cried he. “They who come after me shall know whether there be rewards within reach of honest toil and steady industry without the contamination of a mock patriotism! If I do rise, it shall be from no aid derived from a party or a faction; and if I fail, I bring no discredit upon ‘my order.’”

There are men who can so discipline their minds that they have but to establish a law to their actions to make their whole lives “a system.” Such individuals the Germans not inaptly call “self-contained men,” and of these was Joe Nelligan one.

A certain concentration of his faculties, and the fatigues of a whole night passed thus in thought, gave a careworn, exhausted look to his features as he entered the room where Repton sat awaiting him for breakfast.

“I see what’s the matter with you,” said the old lawyer, as he entered. “You have passed the night after a ‘first brief.’ This day ten years you’ll speak five hours before the Lords ‘in error,’ and never lose a wink of sleep after it’s over!”