Mr. Tims harped aright, and it is inexpressible what a relief Lord Ashborough felt--one of the proudest men in Europe, by the way--at finding that the little, contemptible, despised lawyer, whom he looked upon, on ordinary occasions, as the dust under his feet, had, in the present instance, got the right end of a clue, that he was ashamed or afraid to unwind himself. Besides, the way he put it, gave Lord Ashborough an opportunity of chucking fine and generous, as the Westminster fellows have it; and he immediately replied--"No, sir, no! I never had any wish to annoy him. My only wish has been to lower that pride, which is ruinous to himself, and insulting to others; and I should not have even pursued that wish so far, had it not been that a circumstance happened which called us into immediate collision."
On finding that simple personal hatred and revenge--feelings that might have been stated in three words--were the real and sole motives which Lord Ashborough found it so difficult to enunciate, Mr. Tims chuckled--but mark me, I beg--it was not an open and barefaced cachinnation--it was, on the contrary, one of those sweet internal chuckles that gently shake the diaphragm and the parietes of the abdomen, and cause even a gentle percussion of the ensiform cartilage, without one muscle of the face vibrating in sympathy, or the slightest spasm taking place in the trachea or epiglottis. There is the anatomy of a suppressed chuckle for you! The discovery, however, was of more service than in the simple production of such agreeable phenomena. Mr. Tims perceiving the motive of his patron, perceived also the precise road on which he was to lead, and instantly replied, "Whatever circumstance called your lordship into competition with Sir Sidney Delaware, must of course have been very advantageous to yourself, if you chose to put forth your full powers. But that, let me be permitted to say, is what I should suspect, from all that I have the honour of knowing of your lordship's character, you would not do. For I am convinced you have already shown more lenity than was very consistent with your own interest, and perhaps more than was even beneficial to the object;--but I humbly crave your Lordship's pardon for presuming to"----
Lord Ashborough waved his hand, "Not at all, Mr. Tims! Not at all!" he said, "Your intentions, I know, are good. But hear me. We came in collision concerning the lady whom he afterwards married, and made a well-bred beggar of. He had known her, and, it seems, obtained promises from her before I became acquainted; and though a transitory fancy for her took place in my own bosom,"--and Lord Ashborough turned deadly pale,--"yet of course, whenever I heard of my cousins arrangements with her, I withdrew my claims, without, as you say, exerting power that I may flatter myself"----
He left the sentence unfinished, but he bowed his head proudly, which finished it sufficiently, and Mr. Tims immediately chimed in, "Oh, there can be no doubt--If your lordship had chosen--Who the deuce is Sir Sidney Delaware, compared"----&c. &c. &c. &c.
"Well, I forgot the matter entirely," continued Lord Ashborough, in a frank and easy tone, for it is wonderful how the lawyer's little insignificances helped him on. "Well, I forgot the matter entirely."
"But you never married any one else," thought the lawyer, "and you remember it now." All this was thought in the lowest possible tone, so that Satan himself could hardly hear it, but Lord Ashborough went on. "I never, indeed, remembered the business more, till, on lending the money to his father, I found from a letter which the late man, let me see that the present man, had not forgiven me some little progress I had made in the lady's affection. He said--I recollect the words very well--He said, that he could have borne his father borrowing the money at any rate of interest from any person but myself, who had endeavoured to supplant him--and all the rest that you can imagine. Well, from that moment I determined to bow that man's pride, for his own sake, as well as other people's. I thought I had done so pretty well too; but, on my refusing to suffer the redemption--which no one can doubt that I had a right to do--he wrote me that letter;" and his lordship threw across the table, to his solicitor, the letter which he had taken out of the drawer, just as the other entered. It was in the form of a note, and couched in the following terms:--
"Sir Sidney Delaware acknowledges the receipt of Lord Ashborough's letter, formally declining to accept the offer he made to redeem the annuity chargeable upon the estate of Emberton. The motives, excuses, or apologies--whichever Lord Ashborough chooses to designate the sentences that conclude his letter--were totally unnecessary, as Sir Sidney Delaware was too well acquainted with Lord Ashborough, in days of old, not to appreciate fully the principles on which he acts at present.
"Emberton Park, 1st September, 18--."
"Infamous! brutal! heinous!" cried Mr. Tims. "What does your lordship intend to do? I hope you will, without scruple, punish this man as he deserves. I trust that, for his own sake, you will make him feel that such ungrateful and malignant letters as that, are not to be written with impunity--ungrateful I may well call them! for what cause could your lordship have to write to him at all, except to soften the disappointment you conceived he would feel?"
"You say very true, Mr. Tims," replied Lord Ashborough, with a benign smile. "You say very true, indeed; and I do think myself, in justice to society, bound to correct such insolence, though, perhaps, I may not be inclined to carry the chastisement quite so far as yourself."