After this fit of sorrow, Clara no more made her appearance while Markham stayed. It was absolutely impossible for her to show herself. Her eyes were swelled and inflamed with weeping, her color was gone, and her whole frame in a trembling, agitated state. Another fit of illness threatened her; and Signora Rivolta, anxious for her daughter, could not think without indignation of Miss Henderson, who, to her mind, seemed to be so greatly the cause of that romantic and passionate state of mind in which Clara was placed.
CHAPTER XV.
"He who knows policy and her true aspect,
Shall find her ways winding and indirect."
Webster.
Markham, whose mind was in no very enviable state, did not prolong his visit; but hastily and almost abruptly took his leave of Mr. Martindale, when, after waiting a reasonable time, he saw no more of Clara. The time was now arrived for Markham to go the circuit. He was anxious lest by his absence from England he had injured his circuit practice, and lost his provincial clients. Agreeably disappointed was he to find that instead of that practice being injured or those clients being lost, his practice was increased and his clients were more numerous. Some other young barristers on the circuit were rather angry that Markham should return again after having for a time left the circuit; but that anger could not prevent Markham from having briefs. In every place on the circuit he obtained something, and in some he had as much business as often falls to the lot of older men. He had the advantage of being familiar with law, far beyond his age and standing; he had read much and had thought much, and his memory was good, and his readiness in reference and quotation was surprising. It is true that in order to acquire this he had given hard labor and study; and that for knowledge in his profession he had sacrificed much other knowledge, and many of those amusements in which young gentlemen in that profession do indulge. But he knew that nothing was to be done without labor, and that every thing was to be done by it. When he first embraced the profession, his friends and acquaintants made the common-place remark that the profession was overstocked; but he knew that it was not overstocked with severe and laborious applicants, and that in that profession, as well as in every other, there was room enough for those who would make room for themselves. With this feeling he commenced his studies, and with this encouragement he pursued them. And though he was sometimes laughed at for his simplicity and for his ignorance of every thing but his profession, he knew that in the end he should find his turn to laugh at those who at the beginning laughed at him.
"Every man to his taste," as the proverb has it. Let those who like to laugh and play enjoy themselves in their own way, only let them not suppose that their indolence and levity shall reap and gather the solid advantages and honors of laborious and serious diligence. It may be well that in every profession there should be those who by their negligence and listlessness make room for such as are more diligently disposed: therefore, we should not speak or think contemptuously of those who are not what are called an honor to their profession. They make way and room for others. Life is not quite so much of a lottery as the indolent and unsuccessful think it to be. It is not to be doubted that there are indeed some instances where real application and serious diligence have been unsuccessful. It is sad that there are any such, but there are not so many as is usually supposed.
Markham, we have said, went the circuit, and soon discovered that his temporary absence had not lost him much or any thing. Briefs flowed in upon him in abundance, and one of them was to a young gentleman in his circumstances somewhat curious. It was an action for breach of promise of marriage. Markham always read his briefs attentively, and endeavoured not only to put himself in possession of the facts there stated, but attempted also to understand the real merits of the case; that is to say, he made himself a judge as far as he could from an ex-parte statement, in order that he might thereby be the better able to anticipate his adversary's arguments. He saw very plainly in the case now submitted to him, that this was one of those not uncommon instances, in which a young gentleman of more passion than judgment forms a hasty engagement, and soon finds occasion to repent of his precipitation; where the attachment of the lady increases in proportion as that of the gentleman decreases. Instead, therefore, of meditating and spouting a very fine flowery harangue, which might tend rather to set off the barrister than to aid the cause which he professed to advocate, he thought it best to leave the jury to find out by the force of their own judgment, that to make a promise of this nature and not to fulfil it was altogether improper, and worthy of reprehension and punishment. An action being brought implied an injury; and therefore he did not think it necessary to dwell very prosingly and eloquently on that topic; but rather, he thought it best to anticipate the defence, and neutralise that as much as lay in his power. This he did most effectually; and with an air of the greatest candor and readiness to make every concession and allowance, he succeeded in making the jury believe and feel that the case was abominable. This proceeding crippled the defence, inasmuch as there was in Markham's statement and address none of that tawdry nonsense called pathos and sublimity, but a straightforward, or at least an apparently straightforward, statement of a very common case, in which he did not seem to be making more of the subject than it required or would well bear. The consequence, partly we may suppose of the justice of the cause, and partly of the dexterous manner in which Markham managed it, was, that he had a verdict with as much damages as were claimed. This was a great triumph of plain common sense: for Markham did not by foolishly attempting to make too much of the business overdo and destroy it. His speech which was rather long, and which in its delivery was very clear and distinct, and in its sentences and construction lucid and intelligible, so much pleased and attracted the reporters who were present, that they gave it in the papers at very great length, and especially as trials of this nature are generally highly interesting to the public.
The country trials are read in London. Few young ladies pass over a trial for breach of promise of marriage, without attentively studying the arguments of the case, and delightedly dwelling upon the eloquence and pathos in which the agonies of a broken heart are described and painted to an attentive jury of honest though obtuse agriculturists. Some young ladies were disappointed at Markham's speech, for they had heard that he was a clever man, and they were astonished not to find any more sublimity or sentimentality in his speeches at trials. These young ladies take it as a settled matter, that all clever men who make speeches must by virtue of their cleverness be very flowery and sentimental and figurative in their language. Markham knew better. The jury which he addressed was not composed of tender-hearted, susceptible young gentlemen, overdone with poetry and romance, but of twelve blunt, honest, hard-handed, close-fisted, cool-hearted, dry-souled, middle-aged farmers, who scarcely knew what was meant by a broken heart. It would have been nonsense then to have addressed to them a trumpery fine spoutification, such as young apprentices and journeymen apothecaries administer to one another at their sixpenny debating-clubs and public-house wisdom-shops. Markham spoke to what he knew to be the purpose. A young lady brought an action against a young gentleman for breach of promise of marriage; the first question which the jury would wish to have answered was, is it true that such promise was given and broken? They did not want to hear a school-boy theme on the subject; and if they had heard one, and if they had heard Markham labor very hard to prove the young gentleman one of the most hard-hearted, wicked, abominable creatures that ever lived, and to set forth the young lady as the most cruelly afflicted and tormented of all the broken-hearted daughters of Eve, they might have stared with astonishment at Markham's very wonderful display, but they would not have understood one-half of his fine words, and would not have believed one-half of his fine story. But when it was proved as stated, that there actually had been a breach of promise, then the next question was, may there not be some business, and after conceding all that could be claimed, proved or well argued that the extenuations to be set up were not sufficient: he showed the jury there could be no valid excuse; and therefore, when the defendant's counsel came to make and furnish out the excuses, he found that he had been so anticipated as to be much hampered in the defence: and it answered well. An eloquent man would have spoiled the cause by exaggeration and bombast: therefore, though the young ladies did not think Markham's speech the production of a clever man when they first read it, yet afterwards they were convinced that he was right; and they were very much pleased with those pure and generous principles which he unostentatiously and calmly avowed. They all thought that Mr. Markham must be so very pure in his principles, and so very chivalric, as he expressed such strict notions of the principles of honor as applicable to promises of such a sacred nature as promises of marriage: for in excuse found for the young gentleman? Markham took up this part of the the course of his speech he had said, "You will find that a promise of marriage has in this case actually been made formally, explicitly, and decidedly. There was not an implied intention, but an actual promise. Some men there are, to their shame be it spoken, who by constant attentions and assiduities, without making any promises, gain the affections and excite the hopes of those whom they desert at last with legal impunity, but not without bitter self-reproach."