“Far be it from me, my Lords, long used in the practice of these courts, and long intimate with the righteous principle on which the laws are administered in them, to utter a syllable that in the remotest degree might seem to impugn the justice of the bench; but, a mere frail and erring creature, with feelings common to all around me, I wish to protest against continuing my client's case while your Lordships' bench is occupied by one who, in my person, has grossly outraged the sanctity of the law. Yes, my Lords,” said he, raising his voice, till the deep tones swelled and floated through the vast space, “as the humble advocate of a cause, I now proclaim that in addressing that bench, I am incapable to render justice to the case before me, so long as I see associated with your Lordships a man more worthy to figure in the dock than to take his seat among the ermined judges of the land. A moment more, my Lords. I am ready to make oath that the individual on your Lordships' left is Richard Forester, commonly called the Honorable Richard Forester;—how suitable the designation, your Lordships shall soon hear—”
“I beg to interrupt my learned friend,” interposed the Attorney-General, rising. “He is totally in error; and I would wish to save him from the embarrassment of misdescription. The gentleman he alludes to is the Earl of Wallincourt, a peer of the realm.”
“Proceed with your client's case, Mr. O'Halloran,” said the Chief Baron, who saw that to discuss the question further was now irrelevant. O'Halloran sat down, overwhelmed with rage; a whispered communication from behind told him that the Attorney-General was correct, and that Forester was removed beyond the reach of his vengeance. After a few moments he rallied, and again rose. Turning slowly over the pages of a voluminous brief, he stood waiting, with practised art, till expectancy had hushed each murmur around, when suddenly the crier called, “Way, there,—make way for the High Sheriff!” and that functionary, with a manner of excessive agitation, leaned over the bar, and addressed the bench. “My Lords, I most humbly entreat your Lordships' forgiveness for thus interrupting the business of the court; but the extreme emergency will, I hope, pardon the indecorum. A large vessel has struck on the rocks in the bay: each moment it is expected she must go to pieces. A panic seems to prevail among even our hardy fishermen; and my humble request is, that if there be any individual in this crowded assembly possessing naval knowledge, or any experience in calamities of this nature, he will aid us by his advice and co-operation.”
The senior judge warmly approved the humane suggestion of the sheriff; and several persons were seen now forcing their way through the dense mass,—the far greater part, be it owned, more excited by curiosity than stimulated by any hope of rendering efficient service. Notwithstanding Bicknell's repeated entreaties, and remembrances of his late severe illness, Forester also quitted the court, and accompanied the sheriff to the beach. And now O'Halloran, whose impatience during this interval displayed little sympathy with the sad occasion of the interruption, asked, in a manner almost querulous, if their Lordships were ready to hear him? The court assented, and he began. Without once adverting to the subject on which he so lately addressed them, he opened his case by a species of narrative of the whole legal contest which for some time back had been maintained between the opposite parties in the present suit. Nothing could be more calm or more dispassionate than the estimate he formed of such struggles; neither inclining the balance to one party nor the other, but weighing with impartiality all the reasons that might prompt men on one side to continue a course of legal investigations, and the painful necessity on the other to provide a series of defences, costly, onerous, and harassing. “I have only to point out to the court the defendant in this action, to show how severe such a duty may become. Here, my Lords, beside me, site the gentleman, bowed down with more years than are allotted to humanity generally. Look upon him, and say if it be not difficult to determine what course to follow,—the abandonment of a just right, or its maintenance, at the cost of rendering the few last years—why do I say years?—days, hours, of a life careworn, distracted, and miserable!”
Dwelling long enough on this theme to interest without wearying the jury, he adroitly addressed himself to the case of those who, by a system of litigious persecution, would seek to obtain by menace what they must despair of by law. Beginning by vague and wide generalities, he gradually accumulated a mass of allegations and inferences, which concentrating to a point, he suddenly checked himself, and said: “Now, my Lords, it may be supposed that I will imitate the delicate reserve of my learned friend opposite, and while filling your minds with dark and mysterious suspicions, profess a perfect ignorance of all intention to apply them. But I will not do this: I will be candid and free-spoken; nay, more, my Lords, I will finish what my learned friend has left incomplete; and I will proclaim to the court, and this jury, what he wished, but did not dare, to say,—that we, the defendants in this action, were not only cognizant of a forgery, but were associated in the act! There it is, my Lords; and I accept my learned friend's bland smile as the warm acknowledgment of the truth of my assertion. My learned friend is obliged to me. I see that he cannot conceal his joy at the inaptitude of my avowal. But we have a case, my Lords, that can happily dispense with the dexterity of an advocate, and make its truth felt, even through means as unskilful as mine. They disclaimed, it is true,—they disclaimed in words the wish to make this inference; but even take their disclaimer as such, and what is it? An avowal of their weakness, an open expression of the poverty of their proofs. Yes, my Lords, their disclaimers were like the ominous sounds which break from time to time upon our ear,—but signal-guns of distress. Like that fated vessel, whose sad destiny is perhaps this moment accomplishing, they have been storm-tossed and cast away,—their proud ensign torn, and their rudder gone, but, unlike her, they cannot brave their fate without seeking to involve others in the calamity.”
A terrible gust of wind, so sudden and violent as to be like a thunderclap, now struck the building; and with one tremendous crash the great window of the court-house was driven in, and scattered in fragments of glass and timber throughout the court. A scene of the wildest confusion ensued, for almost immediately the lights became extinguished, and from the dark abyss arose a terrible chaos of voices in every agony of fear and suffering. Some announced that the roof was giving way and was about to crush them; others, in all the bodily torture of severe wounds, cried for help.
It was nearly an hour before the court could resume its sitting, which at length was done in one of the adjoining courts, the usual scene of the criminal trials. Here, now, lights were procured, and after a considerable delay the cause proceeded. If the various events of the night, added to the fatigue of the day, had impressed both the bench and the jury with signs of greatest exhaustion, O'Halloran showed no evidence of abated vigor. On the contrary, like one whose vengeance had been thwarted by opposing accident, he exhibited a species of impatient ardor to resume his work of defamation. With a brief apology for any want of due coherence in an argument so frequently interrupted, he launched out into the most ferocious attack upon the plaintiff in the suit; and while repudiating the affected reserve of the opposite counsel, boldly proclaimed that they would not imitate it; nay, further, that they were only awaiting the sure verdict in their favor, to commence a criminal action against the parties for the very crime they dared to insinuate against them.
“I shall now call my witnesses, my Lord; and if the Grand Cross of the Bath, which this day's paper tells me is to be conferred upon the plaintiff, be not meant, like the brand which foreign justice impresses on its felons, as a mark of ignominy, I am at a loss to understand how it has descended on this man. Call Nathaniel Leery.”
The examination of the witnesses was in perfect keeping with the infamous scurrility of the speech, and the testimony elicited went to prove everything the advocate desired. Though exposed by cross-examination, and their perjury proved, O'Halloran kept a perpetual recapitulation of their assertions before the jury, and so artfully that few, save the practised minds of a legal auditory, could have distinguished in that confused web of truth and falsehood.
The business proceeded with difficulty; for, added to the uproar of the storm, was a continued tumult of voices in the outer hall of the court, and where now several sailors, saved from the wreck, had been brought for shelter. By frequent loud cries from this quarter the court was interrupted, and more than once its proceedings completely arrested,—inconveniences which the judges submitted to with the most tolerant patience,—when at length a loud murmur arose, which gradually swelling louder and louder, all respect for the sacred precincts of the judgment-seat seemed lost in the wild tumult. In a tone of sharp reproof the Chief Baron called on the sheriff to allay the uproar, and if necessary, to clear the hall. The order was scarcely given, when one deafening shout was raised from the street, and, soon caught up, echoed by a thousand voices, while shrill cries of “He has saved them! he has saved them!” rent the air.