"Well," said Lord Widdrington, when Mr. Subtle had concluded, "I own I feel scarcely any doubt upon the matter; but as it is certainly of the greatest possible importance in the present case, I will just see how it strikes my brother Grayley." With this he took the deed in his hand and quitted the court. He touched Mr. Aubrey, in passing to his private room, holding the deed before him! After an absence of about ten minutes, Lord Widdrington returned.
"Silence! silence there!" bawled the crier; and the bustle had soon subsided into profound silence.
"I think, and my brother Grayley agrees with me," said Lord Widdrington, "that I ought not to receive this deed in evidence, unless the erasure occurring in an essential part of it be first accounted for. Unless, therefore, you are prepared, Mr. Attorney, with any evidence of that kind, I shall not receive the deed." The Attorney-General bowed, in silence, to his Lordship.
There was a faint buzz all over the court—a buzz of excitement, anxiety, and disappointment; during which the Attorney-General consulted for a moment or two with his juniors.
"Undoubtedly, my Lord," said he at length, "we are not prepared with any evidence to explain a circumstance which has taken us entirely by surprise. After this length of time, my Lord, of course"——
"Certainly—it is a great misfortune for the parties—a great misfortune. Of course you tender the deed in evidence?" he continued, taking a note.
"We do, my Lord, certainly," replied the Attorney-General; and sitting down, he and his juniors took a note of the decision; Lord Widdrington and the Attorney-General's opponents doing the same.
You should have seen the faces of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, as they looked at Mr. Parkinson, with an agitated air, returning the rejected deed to the bag from which it had been lately taken with so confident and triumphant an air!—The remainder of the case, which had been opened by the Attorney-General on behalf of Mr. Aubrey, was then proceeded with; but in spite of all their assumed calmness, the disappointment and distress of his counsel were perceptible to all. They were now dejected—they felt that the cause was lost, unless some extraordinary good fortune should yet befall them. They were not long in establishing the descent of Mr. Aubrey from Geoffrey Dreddlington. It was necessary to do so; for grievously as they had been disappointed in failing to establish the title paramount, founded upon the deed of confirmation of Mr. Aubrey, it was yet an important question for the jury, whether they believed the evidence adduced by the plaintiff to show title in himself.
"That, my Lord, is the defendant's case," said the Attorney-General as his last witness left the box; and Mr. Subtle then rose to reply. He felt how unpopular was his cause; that almost every countenance around him bore a hostile expression. Privately, he loathed his case, when he saw the sort of person for whom he was struggling. All his sympathies (he was a very proud, haughty man) were on behalf of Mr. Aubrey, whom by name and reputation he well knew, and with whom he had often sat in the House of Commons. Now, conspicuous before him, sat his little monkey-client, Titmouse—a ridiculous object; and calculated, if there were any scope for the influence of prejudice, to ruin his own cause by the exhibition of himself before the jury. That was the vulgar idiot who was to turn the admirable Aubreys out of Yatton, and send them beggared into the world! But Mr. Subtle was a high-minded English advocate; and if he had seen Miss Aubrey in all her loveliness, and knew that her all depended upon the success of his exertions, he could hardly have exerted himself more strenuously than he did on the present occasion. And such, at length, was the effect which that exquisitely skilful advocate produced, in his address to the jury, that he began to bring about a change in the feelings of most around him; even the eye of scornful beauty began to direct fewer glances of indignation and disgust upon Titmouse, as Mr. Subtle's irresistible rhetoric drew upon their sympathies in that young gentleman's behalf. "My learned friend, the Attorney-General, gentlemen, dropped one or two expressions of a somewhat disparaging tendency," said Mr. Subtle, "in alluding to my client, Mr. Titmouse; and shadowed forth a disadvantageous contrast between the obscure and ignorant plaintiff, and the gifted defendant. Good heavens, gentlemen! and is my humble client's misfortune to become his fault? If he be obscure and ignorant, unacquainted with the usages of society, deprived of the blessings of a superior education—if he have contracted vulgarity, whose fault is it?—Who has occasioned it? Who plunged him and his parents before him into an unjust poverty and obscurity, from which Providence is about this day to rescue him, and put him in possession of his own? Gentlemen, if topics like these must be introduced into this case, I ask you who is accountable for the present condition of my unfortunate client? Is he, or are those who have been, perhaps unconsciously, but still unjustly, so long revelling in the wealth which is his? Gentlemen, in the name of everything that is manly and generous, I challenge your sympathy, your commiseration, for my client." Here Titmouse, who had been staring open-mouthed for some time at his eloquent advocate, and could be kept quiet no longer by the most vehement efforts of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, rose up in an excited manner, exclaiming, "Bravo! bravo, bravo, sir! 'Pon my life, capital! It's quite true—bravo! bravo!" His astounded advocate paused at this unprecedented interruption. "Take the puppy out of court, sir, or I will not utter one word more," said he, in a fierce whisper to Mr. Gammon.
"Who is that? Leave the court, sir! Your conduct is most indecent, sir! I have a great mind to commit you, sir!" said Lord Widdrington, directing an awful look down to the offender, who had turned of a ghastly whiteness.