"Well, I believe the matter is as I tell you. There at any rate is Mollett's assurance that it is so. The woman has been residing in the same place for years, and will come forward at any time to prove that she was married to this man before he ever saw—before he went to Dorsetshire: she has her marriage certificate; and as far as I can learn there is no one able or willing to raise the question against you. Your cousin Owen certainly will not do so."
"It will hardly do to depend upon that," said Mr. Die, with another sneer. "Twelve thousand a year is a great provocative to litigation."
"If he does we must fight him; that's all. Of course steps will be taken at once to get together in the proper legal form all evidence of every description which may bear on the subject, so that should the question ever be raised again, the whole matter may be in a nutshell."
"You'll find it a nutshell very difficult to crack in five-and-twenty years' time," said Mr. Die.
"And what would you advise me to do?" asked Herbert.
That after all was now the main question, and it was discussed between them for a long time, till the shades of evening came upon them, and the dull dingy chambers became almost dark as they sat there. Mr. Die at first conceived that it would be well that Herbert should still stick to the law. What indeed could be more conducive to salutary equanimity in the mind of a young man so singularly circumstanced, than the study of Blackstone, of Coke, and of Chitty? as long as he remained there, at work in those chambers, amusing himself occasionally with the eloquence of the neighbouring courts, there might be reasonable hope that he would be able to keep his mind equally poised, so that neither success nor failure as regarded his Irish inheritance should affect him injuriously. Thus at least argued Mr. Die. But at this point Herbert seemed to have views of his own: he said that in the first place he must be with his mother; and then, in the next place, as it was now clear that he was not to throw up Castle Richmond—as it would not now behove him to allow any one else to call himself master there,—it would be his duty to reassume the place of master. "The onus probandi will now rest with them," he said, repeating Mr. Prendergast's words; and then he was ultimately successful in persuading even Mr. Die to agree that it would be better for him to go to Ireland than to remain in London, sipping the delicious honey of Chancery buttercups.
"And you will assume the title, I suppose?" said Mr. Die.
"Not at any rate till I get to Castle Richmond," he said, blushing. He had so completely abandoned all thought of being Sir Herbert Fitzgerald, that he had now almost felt ashamed of saying that he should so far presume as to call himself by that name.
And then he and Mr. Prendergast went away and dined together, leaving Mr. Die to complete his legal work for the day. At this he would often sit till nine or ten, or even eleven in the evening, without any apparent ill results from such effects, and then go home to his dinner and port wine. He was already nearly seventy, and work seemed to have no effect on him. In what Medea's caldron is it that the great lawyers so cook themselves, that they are able to achieve half an immortality, even while the body still clings to the soul? Mr. Die, though he would talk of his bald head, had no idea of giving way to time. Superannuated! The men who think of superannuation at sixty are those whose lives have been idle, not they who have really buckled themselves to work. It is my opinion that nothing seasons the mind for endurance like hard work. Port wine should perhaps be added.
It was not till Herbert once more found himself alone that he fully realized this new change in his position. He had dined with Mr. Prendergast at that gentleman's club, and had been specially called upon to enjoy himself, drinking as it were to his own restoration in large glasses of some special claret, which Mr. Prendergast assured him was very extraordinary.