“You see,” said Davis, in a low, confidential tone, as if imparting a great secret, “I've always remarked that the way they smash a fellow in Parliament—I don't care in which House—is always by raking up something or other he did years before. If he wrote a play, or a novel, or a book of poems, they 're down on him at once, about his imagination and his fancy,—that means, he never told a word of truth in his life. If he was unfortunate in business, they 're sure to refer to him about some change in the Law of Bankruptcy, and say, 'There's my honorable friend yonder ought to be able to help us by his experiences!' Then, if a fellow has only his wits about him, how he floors them! You see there's a great deal of capital to be made out of one of these attacks. You rise to reply, without any anger or passion; only dignity,—nothing but dignity! You appeal to the House if the assault of the right honorable baronet opposite was strictly in good taste,—whatever that means. You ask why you are signalled out to be the mark of his eloquence, or his wit, or whatever it be; and then you come out with a fine account of yourself, and all the honorable motives that nobody ever suspected you of. That's the moment to praise everything you ever did, or meant to do, or couldn't do; that's the time to show them what a man they have amongst them.”
“Capital, glorious, excellent!” cried Beecher, in delight “Well, suppose now,” said Davis, “there 's a bill about marriages,—they 're always changing the law about them; it's evidently a contract does n't work quite smoothly for all parties,—well, there's sure to be many a spicy remark and impertinent allusion in the debate; it's a sore subject, and every one has a 'raw' on it; and, at last, somebody says something about unequal matches, alliances with an inferior class, 'noble lords that have not scrupled to mingle the ancient blood of their race with the—the thin and washy current that flows in plebeian veins.' I 'm the Lord Chancellor, now,” said Grog, boldly, “and I immediately turn round and fix my eyes upon you. Up you get at once, and say, 'I accept, my Lords,—I accept for myself, and my own case, every word the noble Duke or Marquis has just uttered. It never would have occurred to me to make my personal history the subject of your Lordships' attention; but when thus rudely brought before you,—rudely and gratuitously introduced—'Here you 'd frown at the last speaker, as much as to say, 'You 'll hear more about this outside—'”
“Go on,—go on!” cried Beecher, with impatience.
“'I rise in this place,'—that has always a great impression, to say 'this place,'—'I rise in this place to say that I am prouder in the choice that shares with me the honors of my coronet, than in all the dignity and privilege that same coronet confers.' What a cheer, what a regular hurrah follows that, for they have seen her,—ay, that have they! They have beheld her sweeping down the gilded drawing-room,—the handsomest woman in England! Where's the Duchess with her eyes, her skin, her dignity, and her grace? Does n't she look 'thoroughbred in every vein of her neck'? Where did she get that graceful sweep, that easy-swimming gait, if she had n't it in her very nature'?”
“By Heaven, it's true, every syllable of it!” cried out Beecher, in all the wild ecstasy of delight.
“Where is the man—I don't care what his rank might be—who would n't envy you after you 'd made that speech? You 'd walk down Westminster the proudest man in England after it.”
Beecher's features glowed with a delight that showed he had already anticipated the sense of his popularity.
“And then how the newspapers will praise you! It will be as if you built a bridge over the gulf that separates two distinct classes of people. You 'll be a sort of noble reformer. What was the wisest thing Louis Napoleon ever did? His marriage. Do you mark that he was always following his uncle's footsteps in all his other policy; he saw that the only great mistake he ever made was looking out for a high match, and, like a shrewd fellow, he said, 'I have station, rank, power, and money enough for two. It 's not to win the good favor of a wrinkled old Archduchess or a deaf old Princess, I 'm going to marry. I 'll go in for the whole field. I 'll take the girl that, if I was n't an Emperor, I 'd be proud to call my own.' And signs on 't, they all cried out, 'See if he has n't his heart in the right place; there's an honest drop there! Let him be as ambitious as you like, he married just as you or I would.' Ain't it a fine thing,” exclaimed Grog, enthusiastically, “when one has all the middle classes in one's favor,—the respectable ruck that's always running, but seldom showing a winner? Get these fellows with you, and it's like Baring's name on the back of your bill. And now, Beecher,” said Davis, grasping the other's hand, and speaking with a deep earnestness,—“and now that I 've said what you might have done, I 'll tell you what I will do. I have just been sketching out this line of country to see how you 'd take your fences, nothing more. You 've shown me that you 're the right sort, and I 'm not the man to forget it. If I had seen the shadow of a shade of a dodge about you,—if I 'd have detected one line in your face, or one shake in your voice, like treachery,—so help me! I 'd have thrown you over like winking! You fancied yourself a great man, and was stanch and true to your old friends; and now it's my turn to tell you that I would n't give that empty flask yonder for all your brother Lackington's lease of his peerage! Hear me out I have it from his own lawyers,—from the fellows in Furnival's Inn,—it's up with him; the others are perfectly sure of their verdict There's how it is! And now, Annesley Beecher, you were willing to marry Kit Davis's daughter when you thought you could make her a peeress; now I say, that when you 've nothing, nor haven't a sixpence to bless yourself with, it's Kit himself will give her to you, and say, there's not the other man breathing he'd as soon see the husband of this same Lizzy Davis!”
The burst of emotion with which Beecher met this speech was, indeed, the result of very conflicting feelings. Shock at the terrible tidings of his brother's downfall, and the insult to his house and name, mingled with a burst of gratitude to Davis for his fidelity; but stronger and deeper than these was another sentiment,—for, smile if you will, most sceptical reader, the man was in love, after his fashion. I do not ask of you to believe that he felt as you or I might or ought to feel the tender passion. I do not seek to persuade you that the object of his affection, mingled with all his thoughts, swayed them and etherealized them; that she was the theme of many a heart-woven story, the heroine of many an ecstatic dream: still she was one who could elicit from that nature, in all its selfishness, little traits of generous feeling, little bursts of honest sentiment, that made him appear better to his own heart. And so far has the adage truth with it, virtue is its own reward, in the conscious sense of well doing, in the peaceful calm of an unrepining spirit, and, not least of all, in that sympathy which good men so readily bestow upon even faint efforts to win their suffrage.
And so he sobbed out something that meant grief and gratitude; hope, fear, and uncertainty—worse than fear—all agitating and distracting him by turns.