"Oh, yes," said the lawyer; "there's no doubt about his falsehood. He's one of those fellows for whom nothing is too dirty. Clergymen are like women. As long as they're pure, they're a long sight purer than other men; but when they fall, they sink deeper."
"You needn't be afraid of taking her word," said John Ball. "If all women were as pure as she is, there wouldn't be much amiss with them." His eyes glittered as he spoke of her, and it was a pity that Margaret could not have heard him then, and seen him there.
"You don't think she has been—just a little foolish, you know?"
"I think she was very foolish in not bidding such a man to go about his business, at once. But she has not been more so than what she owns. She is as brave as she is good, and I don't think she would keep anything back."
The result was that a letter was written by the lawyer to Mr Maguire, telling Mr Maguire that any further communication should be made to him; and also making a slight suggestion as to the pains and penalties which are incurred in the matter of a libel. Mr Maguire had dated his letter from Littlebath, and there the answer reached him. He had returned thither, having found that he could take no further immediate steps towards furthering his cause in London.
And now, what steps should he take next? More than once he thought of putting his own case into the hands of a lawyer; but what was a lawyer to do for him? An action for breach of promise was open to him, but he had wit enough to feel that there was very little chance of success for him in that line. He might instruct a lawyer to look into Miss Mackenzie's affairs, and he thought it probable that he might find a lawyer to take such instructions. But there would be much expense in this, and, probably, no result. Advancing logically from one conclusion to another, he at last resolved that he must rush boldly into print, and lay the whole iniquity of the transaction open to the public.
He believed—I think he did believe—that the woman was being wronged. Some particle of such belief he had, and fostering himself with this, he sat himself down, and wrote a leading article.
Now there existed in Littlebath at this time a weekly periodical called the Christian Examiner, with which Mr Maguire had for some time had dealings. He had written for the paper, taking an earnest part in local religious subjects; and the paper, in return, had very frequently spoken highly of Mr Maguire's eloquence, and of Mr Maguire's energy. There had been a give and take in this, which all people understand who are conversant with the provincial, or perhaps I might add, with the metropolitan press of the country. The paper in question was not a wicked paper, nor were the gentlemen concerned in its publication intentionally scurrilous or malignant; but it was subject to those great temptations which beset all class newspapers of the kind, and to avoid which seems to be almost more difficult, in handling religious subjects, than in handling any other. The editor of a Christian Examiner, if, as is probable, he have, of his own, very strong and one-sided religious convictions, will think that those who differ from him are in a perilous way, and so thinking, will feel himself bound to tell them so. The man who advocates one line of railway instead of another, or one prime minister as being superior to all others, does not regard his opponents as being fatally wrong,—wrong for this world and for the next,—and he can restrain himself. But how is a newspaper writer to restrain himself when his opponent is incurring everlasting punishment, or, worse still, carrying away others to a similar doom, in that they read, and perhaps even purchase, that which the lost one has written? In this way the contents of religious newspapers are apt to be personal; and heavy, biting, scorching attacks, become the natural vehicle of Christian Examiners.
Mr Maguire sat down and wrote his leading article, which on the following Saturday appeared in all the glory of large type. The article shall not be repeated here at length, because it contained sundry quotations from Holy Writ which may as well be omitted, but the purport of it shall be explained. It commenced with a dissertation against an undue love of wealth,—the auri sacra fames, as the writer called it; and described with powerful unction the terrible straits into which, when indulged, it led the vile, wicked, ugly, hideous, loathsome, devilish human heart. Then there was an eloquent passage referring to worms and dust and grass, and a quotation respecting treasures both corruptible and incorruptible. Not at once, but with crafty gradations, the author sloped away to the point of his subject. How fearful was it to watch the way in which the strong, wicked ones,—the roaring lions of the earth, beguiled the ignorance of the innocent, and led lonely lambs into their slaughter-houses. All this, much amplified, made up half the article; and then, after the manner of a pleasant relater of anecdotes, the clerical story-teller began his little tale. When, however, he came to the absolute writing of the tale, he found it to be prudent for the present to omit the names of his hero and heroine—to omit, indeed, the names of all the persons concerned. He had first intended boldly to dare it all, and perhaps would yet have done so had he been quite sure of his editor. But his editor he found might object to these direct personalities at the first sound of the trumpet, unless the communication were made in the guise of a letter, with Mr Maguire's name at the end of it. After a while the editor might become hot in the fight himself, and then the names could be blazoned forth. And there existed some chance,—some small chance,—that the robber-lion, John Ball, might be induced to drop his lamb from his mouth when he heard this premonitory blast, and then the lion's prey might be picked up by—"the bold hunter," Mr Maguire would probably have said, had he been called upon to finish the sentence himself; anyone else might, perhaps, say, by the jackal. The little story was told, therefore, without the mention of any names. Mr Maguire had read other little stories told in another way in other newspapers, of greater weight, no doubt, than the Littlebath Christian Examiner, and had thought that he could wield a thunderbolt as well as any other Jupiter; but in wielding thunderbolts, as in all other operations of skill, a man must first try his 'prentice hand with some reticence; and thus he reconciled himself to prudence, not without some pangs of conscience which accused him inwardly of cowardice.
"Not long ago there was a lady in this town, loved and respected by all who knew her." Thus he began, and then gave a not altogether inaccurate statement of the whole affair, dropping, of course, his own share in the concern, and accusing the vile, wicked, hideous, loathsome human heart of the devouring lion, who lived some miles to the west end of London, of a brutal desire and a hellish scheme to swallow up the inheritance of the innocent, loved, and respected lamb, in spite of the closest ties of consanguinity between them. And then he went on to tell how, with a base desire of covering up from the eyes of an indignant public his bestial greediness in having made this dishonest meal, the lion had proposed to himself the plan of marrying the lamb! It was a pity that Maguire had not learned—that Miss Colza had not been able to tell him—that the lion had once before expressed his wish to take the lamb for his wife. Had he known that, what a picture he would have drawn of the disappointed vindictive king of the forest, as lying in his lair at Twickenham he meditated his foul revenge! This unfortunately was unknown to Mr Maguire and unsuspected by him.