“This is a point I can give no opinion upon,” said Daly; “they have been accustomed to live surrounded with luxuries of every kind: whether they can at once descend to actual poverty, or would rather cling to the remnant of their former comforts, is not in my power to tell.”
“The very bond under which they have foreclosed,” said Bicknell, “admits of great question. Unfortunately, that fellow Gleeson destroyed all the papers before his suicide, or we could ascertain if a clause of redemption were not inserted; there was no registry of the judgment, and we are consequently in the hands of the enemy.”
“I cannot help saying,” said Daly, sternly, “that if it were not for the confounded subtleties of your craft, roguery would have a less profitable sphere of employment: so many hitches, so many small crotchety conjunctures influence the mere question of right and wrong that a man is led at last to think less of justice itself than of the petty artifices to secure a superiority.”
“I must assure you that you are in a great error,” said Bicknell, calmly; “the complication of a suit is the necessary security the law has recourse to against the wiles and stratagems of designing men. What you call its hitches and subtleties are the provisions against craft by which mere honesty is protected: that they are sometimes employed to defeat justice, is saying no more than that they are only human contrivances; for what good institution cannot be so perverted?”
“So much the better, if you can think so. Now, what are Darcy's chances of success?—never mind recapitulating details, which remind me a great deal too much of my own misfortunes, but say, in one word, is the prospect good or bad, or has it a tinge of both?”
“It may be any of the three, according to the way in which the claim is prosecuted; if there be sufficient means—”
“Is that the great question?”
“Undoubtedly; large fees to the leading counsel, retainers, if a record be kept for trial at the Assizes, and payment to special juries: all are expensive, and all necessary.”
“I 'll write to Darcy to-night, then,—or, better still, I 'll write to Lady Eleanor, repeating what you have told me, and asking her advice and opinion; meanwhile, lose no time in consulting Mr. Boyle,—you prefer him?”
“Certainly, in a case like this he cannot be surpassed; besides, he is already well acquainted with all the leading facts, and has taken a deep interest in the affair. There are classes and gradations of ability at the bar, irrespective of degrees of actual capacity; we have the heavy artillery of the Equity Court, the light field-pieces of the King's Bench, and the Congreve rockets of Assize display: to misplace or confound them would be a grave error.”