“And you suppose, sir, that Mary Monson intends to follow this advice?”
“Beyond a question. She is not only a very clever, but she is a very cunning woman. This last quality is one that I admire in her the least. I should be half in love with her myself”—This was exactly the state of the counsellor’s feelings towards his client, in spite of his bravado and affected discernment; a woman’s charms often overshadowing a philosophy that is deeper even than his—“but for this very trait, which I find little to my taste. I take it for granted you are sent home to be put under your mother’s care, where you properly belong; and I am got out of the way to save me from the pains and penalties of an indictment for felony.”
“I think you do not understand Mary Monson, uncle Tom”—so Anna had long called her friend’s relative, as it might be in anticipation of the time when the appellation would be correct—“She is not the sort of person to do as you suggest; but would rather make it a point of honour to remain, and face any accusation whatever.”
“She must have nerves of steel to confront justice in a case like hers[hers], and in the present state of public feeling in Duke’s. Justice is a very pretty thing to talk about, my dear; but we old practitioners know that it is little more, in human hands, than the manipulations of human passions. Of late years, the outsiders—outside barbarians they might very properly be termed—have almost as much to do with the result of any warmly-contested suit, as the law and evidence. ‘Who is on the jury?’ is the first question asked now-a-days; not what are the facts. I have told all this, very plainly, to Mary Monson——”
“To induce her to fly?” asked Anna, prettily, and a little smartly.
“Not so much that, as to induce her to consent to an application for delay. The judges of this country are so much over-worked, so little paid, and usually are so necessitous, that almost any application for delay is granted. Business at chambers is sadly neglected; for that is done in a corner, and does not address itself to the public eye, or seek public eulogiums; but he is thought the cleverest fellow who will soonest sweep out a crowded calendar[calendar]. Causes are tried by tallow candles until midnight, with half the jurors asleep; and hard-working men, accustomed to be asleep by eight each night, are expected to keep their thoughts and minds active in the face of all these obstacles.”
“Do you tell me this, uncle Tom, in the expectation that I am to understand it?”
“I beg your pardon, child; but my heart is full of the failing justice of the land. We shout hosannas in praise of the institutions, while we shut our eyes to the gravest consequences that are fast undermining us in the most important of all our interests. But here we are already; I had no notion we had walked so fast. Yes, there is papa McBrain’s one-horse vehicle, well emptied of its contents, I hope, by a hard day’s work.”
“A doctor’s life must be so laborious!” exclaimed the pretty Anna. “I think nothing could tempt me to marry a physician.”
“It is well a certain lady of our acquaintance was not of your way of thinking,” returned Dunscomb, laughing; for his good humour always returned when he could give his friend a rub on his matrimonial propensities, “else would McBrain have been troubled to get his last and best. Never mind, my dear; he is a good-natured fellow, and will make a very kind papa.”