About daylight, with great reluctance, she was prevailed upon to lie down on a lounge at the foot of Gabriel's bed, and as the patient seemed to be resting quietly, George and Clarence went into the next room to partake of a light collation.
George poured a glass of wine for Clarence and another for himself, and both drank in silence. Evidently they could not eat.
“Was it possible to imagine that Gabriel could have become so poor that he had to be a hod-carrier?” George said at last, scarcely above a whisper.
Clarence being as much moved, took some time to reply.
“The thing is to me so shockingly preposterous and so very heart-rending that it does not seem possible. And to think that if I had not gone away, I might, yes, could, have prevented so much suffering! Oh! the fool, the idiot that I was to go,” said Clarence, rising and pacing the room in great agitation. “I will never forgive myself nor my bankers either, and shall take my money to some other bank. They should never have given Don Gabriel's place to anybody else, for it was at my request, and to oblige me that they employed him, and they have had the use of my money all this time. Oh! how I wish you could have established a bank here with the three hundred thousand dollars I placed to Don Mariano's credit, since he would not accept any payment for the cattle—my cattle, mind you—lost in the snow. But perhaps three hundred thousand dollars would have been rather small capital.”
“It would have been plenty to begin with, but as the understanding was that the bank was to be in San Diego, none of us felt authorized to change the plan. I doubt if Don Mariano would have drawn any of the three hundred thousand dollars. You know he mortgaged his rancho rather than take any of your money.”
“His money, you ought to say, for I had already bought his cattle. I wish he had not taken so different a view of the matter. Really, the money was his from the moment I agreed to make the purchase. But tell me, why is it that Mrs. Mechlin lost her homestead. It might have been sold to help the family.”
George related how Peter Roper “jumped” the Mechlin house in true vandalic style, breaking open the doors with axes and dragging out the furniture when the family were in great grief, and how this outrage as well as others were indulgently passed over by San Diego's august tribunal of justice. George, however, did not know all. He did not know that Judge Lawlack upon one occasion, when he had made a decision in favor of Peter Roper and against the Mechlins, discovering upon reflection that he had made a gross mistake, because the authority upon which he based his decision, obviously favored the Mechlins, had changed his decision. He actually called the attorneys of both sides into court and then amended his own decree and had an entirely different judgment entered—a judgment based upon another authority, which, with his construction of the law, favored Peter. Then again when the Mechlins tried to file another complaint, Peter got up, and in his coarse loquacity, vociferously exhorted his Honor to send all the plaintiffs and their attorney to jail for contempt of court in daring to renew their complaint when his Honor had decided that they had no case; that the innocent purchasers, Roper and Gasbang, were the legitimate owners of the Mechlin place. Whereupon, his Honor Lawlack hurriedly slid off the judicial bench, under the judicial canopy, in high tantrums, and shuffled off the judicial platform, gruffly mumbling: “I have passed upon that before,” and slouchingly made his exit.
The plaintiffs, their attorneys and their witnesses, were left to make the best of such legal proceedings! They could not even take an appeal to the Supreme Court, for they had no record; they could make no pleadings; Judge Lawlack had carefully and effectively done all he could to ruin their case. Peter winked and showed his yellow teeth and purple gums in high glee, proud to have exhibited his influence with the Court, and, as usual, went to celebrate his triumph by getting intoxicated and being whipped, so that he had a black eye and skinned nose for several days.
It was obvious to George and Clarence that the position of Gabriel and Lizzie in San Francisco must have been painful in the extreme, and yet they did not know all. Lizzie had never told anybody all the disagreeable, humiliating, repugnant experiences she had had to pass through. She had tried to help her husband to find some occupation more befitting a gentleman than that of a day laborer. But she gave up her sad endeavors, seeing that she was only humiliating herself to no purpose. She met at times gentlemen and kind-hearted men, who were courteous to her, but oftener she found occasion to despise mankind for their unnecessary rudeness and most unprovoked boorishness. More painful yet was the evident change she noticed in the manners of her lady acquaintances.