CHAPTER XXI
Chief Justice Jeffreys sat alone in his lodging at Wells.
The long sitting in court was over. All day he had stormed and bullied, reducing prisoners and advocates alike, and even his brothers on the bench, to a state of terrified submission. He had poured forth abuse on the heads of timorous witnesses, cracked his jests and thundered his threats at the miserable victims of the law's severity. He had sworn, wrangled, and blustered, and now he was alone.
The wearying journey, the tedious days of work, the long nights of carouse, above all the unrestrained passions in which he daily indulged had conduced to the inevitable result; on his arrival in Wells his malady had become greatly aggravated, and his physicians had urged on him the absolute necessity of quiet and abstinence. Accordingly to-night he followed their advice; the officers and other jovial gentlemen who formed his escort feasted apart, and, sick in body, weary in mind, he sat alone.
And as he sat there in all the luxury of his surroundings, despite his high position, despite his success, despite his wealth, power, and influence, 'twould have been hard to find in all the length and breadth of the kingdom a more wretched man than George Jeffreys, lord chief justice of England, lord chancellor elect.
For the man was cursed with a double curse, and the burden of his life seemed at times too heavy to be borne. Cursed with an ambition which would not let him rest, which ever urged him to new struggles, new extravagances, new ventures, and contrariwise cursed with a sensitiveness, a cowardice that made each step in the path of his career an added terror to his brain, each rough encounter a fresh misery, each rebuff a stinging agony.
The mainspring of his character was an overweening vanity. He must be first of his company, he must, by whatever means offered, rise to the highest; but on the other hand he could brook no opposition, a taunt or a rebuke was torture to him, a threat a terror that moved him at times to tears. The rebuffs and sneers which to a braver nature appear but the natural pricks of life, were to him a veritable torment from which he shrank with all the horror of a keenly sensitive soul. While his ambitious vanity drove him to assume airs of overweening insolence, to bully and overawe all who came before him, to delight to see men shrink and tremble at his words; yet if he met with opposition, his haughty mien vanished in a burst of childish passion, and if he found his aims thwarted he became reduced to a state of helpless misery.
Thus his ambition drove him into a struggle with the world, but the very enmity and hatred naturally evoked were to him the source of misery unspeakable.
Such was the man who had elected to climb the highest rung of the ladder. Verily he paid his price.
As he sat alone, forced no longer to wear his mask, to preserve an air of proud assurance and command, the reflection of his thoughts played across his face, and 'twas a bitter tale to read. His brows frowned in pain and perplexity, his lips twitched nervously, and in his eyes lurked a look as of one cowering beneath an ever-present dread. He leaned weariedly back in his chair, his hands idly resting on its arms, his face drawn with suffering.