Much ado about nothing.

A few days after the conversation detailed in the preceding chapter, there was ushered into the office of the advocate at Montreal a gentleman, who announced himself as Montigny, Seigneur of Mainville. He was tall, and of a distinguished aspect, and had scarcely accepted of the advocate's invitation to be seated, when, like a man impatient to be done with a disagreeable business, he began:

“I have a son, sir, and you, as I believe, a ward, an orphan girl;” pronouncing with a mixture of pity and contempt the last two words.

The advocate observed this depreciatory intonation, and throwing himself backwards in his large easy chair, repeated: “An orphan girl,” at the same time putting a half angry, half comical expression into his countenance, and perpetrating a pun in what followed: “Yes, many of your Canadian noblesse would bless themselves to have been her father. The poor fellow, it is well he is not here to have overheard you. An orphan girl: true, as you say, I have an orphan girl,—or one that passes for such; a girl I love, a ward, a charming child, yonder at Stillyside. Were I disposed to praise her I might say she is the Mountain's maid; the Dryad of its woods, a grace, a goddess, fairer than Diana, and far purer, for one may guess the fool Diana made of that poor boy, Endymion. But what concerning my ward, sir, my most immaculate lady?”

“Would you forbid my son access to her?” enquired the seigneur.

“Ah! you wish for an injunction;” said the advocate; “show me cause. I have, sir—as you seem aware—a ward dwelling yonder at my seat at Stillyside;—a place I sometimes visit; a sort of shrine, a kind of hermitage or chapel, wherein two devotees, two nun-like, holy women consume the hours; leading there, pious, penitential lives, making each day a sort of hallowed tide, and every eve a vigil.”

“You are humorous,” replied the seigneur. “Excuse me, I am sorry, but it were best that I should speak plainly. I would not wish to see your ward dishonored.”

“Dishonored! not a seigneur, nor a seigneur's son dare dream of such a consummation, nor, daring so to dream, could compass it,” cried the advocate, growing crimson. “Yet this is kind of you;” he added, bowing as if deeply grateful;—“and yet,” he continued, “there can be no fear of an offence: is not your son a clergyman? for, if he be, and they confess to him anything worse than to have admitted him to their confidence—why, sir, he shall be allowed to enter, and shrive them when he chooses;” and after a momentary silence, “Fie! fie!” he resumed, rolling in his chair; “'the fool hath said in his heart there is no God,' and the wise man of Mainville, who has been all his life looking for purity in a petticoat, says 'there is no virtue in woman.' But I say, both these oracles are in the wrong; there is not only a Divinity, but there are women too who are virtuous. This is a clumsy jest, sir. My ward be dishonored by your son? Yes, when the diamond can be cut with a feather. Monsieur Montigny, a tempest is as harmless as a breath, when that tempest is being hurled against the rock; a breath is even as effectual as is a tempest, when that breath is puffed against the dust. So buzzing blandishments of sighing fops, may blow the frail flowerets from weak, wanton natures; whilst vehement vows of otherwise most honorable men, though urged as strongly as the northern blast, are in vain against the marble front of virtue. I am marble to your wishes.”

“You weigh your danger as little as you do your language,” observed the seigneur. “Will you permit a trespasser, a tempter within your grounds; a wolf, a fox, a bear within your fold?”

The advocate shrugged his shoulders and replied: “No, heaven forbid;—and Stillyside is to me as an outer court of heaven, wherein my ward dwells as a sort of semi-solitary angel.”

“Yet angels fell, and so may she fall,” interjected the seigneur quickly.

“They did, and without a tempter, too, Monsieur Montigny,” returned the advocate, quietly; then added: “the height of heaven turned the heads of the angels giddy.”

“Girls are giddy,” remarked the seigneur gravely.

“Boys are more frequently foolish,” drily retorted the advocate: “and often coming to girls for kisses, go away with cuffs. I hope your son has neither sought for the one nor yet received the other. But what is this son, Monsieur Montigny, that you would have me believe to be so formidable? Is he another Lucifer, couched at my Ward's ear, as his dark prototype once squatted at that of Eve? Or is he Lothario alive again? Is he Leander, and are the Ottawa's jaws a western Hellespont, with my ward and Stillyside, for Hero and her tower?”

“Your verandah,” remarked the seigneur, “is not higher than was Hero's tower, although, I trust, your ward's virtue may be more exalted than was Hero's. But are you aware, sir, that already my son has had her company, alone, at midnight, on your grounds; all others retired; she alone watching, with Claude Montigny and the broad, full moon?”

“An actionable moon,” exclaimed the lawyer, “and a decided case of lunacy against the lovers. But, alas, sir, in this respect we have all been sinners in our youth, and all grown wondrous righteous with our years. Have we not ourselves, when we were young,—ay, and upon inclement winter nights too, courted brown peasant girls beneath both stars and moon? What if the nights were cold, the blood was warm; and now with these volcanic veins of ours grown cool, why, we may walk on the quenched crater of concupiscence, and who dares challenge us, and say, ha, ha! smut clings to you, gentlemen; you have the smell of fire upon you. No, sir, no; we are fumigated, ventilated, scented, powdered, purged as with hyssop. Pish! he must be truly an Ethiop, whom time cannot whiten; a very leopard, who will not part with his spots, since the sun himself shall lose his some day, purged in his own fires.”

“I repeat, sir, your ward is in danger,” said the seigneur doggedly.

“Not at all. Is the diamond in danger when it is put into the crucible; is the gold deteriorated when it is being deterged from dross?” was responded.

“Infatuated man, would you open the door to the seducer?” asked the seigneur, growing angry with the contumelious lawyer.

“Seducer!” said the advocate, affecting to be shocked: “that is a huge stone to throw at your own son: and remember; is not every man's frame a glass house, whereat the soul that inhabits it should invite no stone throwing from the little red catapult of a neighbour's tongue? Beware, beware; have mercy, Monsieur Montigny. 'All flesh is grass,' the Prophet proclaims; but I assert, 'All flesh is glass.'”

“A woman's reputation is as brittle,” was the seigneur's ready repartee; “therefore warn off my son from Stillyside.”

“But should he not regard me, sir, what then?”

“Brandish the law over him, your chosen weapon,” answered the seigneur.

The lawyer suddenly looked grave, and, affecting to be offended, demanded sternly: “Monsieur Montigny, am I a mere mechanic to do your bidding? Brandish the law indeed! Is, then, the law but an ordinary cudgel, to thwack the shoulders with or beat the brains out? The law, sir, is a sacred weapon, not to be lightly taken up, neither to be profanely applied to paltry uses, any more than we would take the tempered razor to pick a bone, or pare our cheese with. Brandish the law! The man that can talk of brandishing the law would brandish a piece of the true cross, sir, if he had it; he would drink, sir, from his mother's skull, and with his father's thigh-bones play at shinty. What is the law? What less is it than the will and force of all employed for one; the savage sense of justice, disciplined and drilled till it can move in regular array, invincibly, to conquer wrong; surely too vast an engine to be employed on trifles. Who wants a wheel to break a butterfly upon; or, to crush a worm who calls for a pavior's rammer? Monsieur Montigny, listen. Mercy is Heaven's first attribute, and the executioner is the State's meanest, as well as last, servant; shall I, then, stoop to this, who may aspire to that? Shall I wield a whip of legal scorpions before your son, should he seek to re-enter Stillyside? Would you have me, as once Heaven's cherubim stood at the gates of Paradise, with fiery swords turning all ways, to hinder its ejected tenants from breaking back into the garden,—would you have me, I say, stand at my gates at Stillyside, and, meeting young Montigny, flourish in his face a fist full of fasces, in the form of threatened pains and penalties? No; your suit, sir, is denied: you take nothing by your motion.”

“Dare you deny,” retorted the seigneur, loudly, and with a look of coming triumph; “dare you deny that you are privy to their intimacy; will you assert that you—yourself unseen—have not witnessed my son in secret, midnight conversation with your ward at Stillyside; there overheard them interchanging vows of endless love, and dealing declarations of devotedness unto each other;—I ask you; did you not hear and see these doings, and, even when you did at length surprise the pair, did you not by failing to condemn their folly, give it your silent sanction?”

“Something of this I did,” said the advocate coolly, “for I remembered some rather liberal breathings of my own when I was young,—and youth will have its fling,—nay, do not bite your lip, but listen. Monsieur Montigny, thus far we have met guile with guile. Just like two wily fencers, both of us, waiting to spy our advantage, have still witheld the lunge, until, at last, you, having grown desperate, have rushed into the close. Yet, do not let your anger overbear discretion. The heated iron hisses when it is plunged into the trough, but shall we hiss at each other like geese or serpents? Shall we quarrel, deny the undeniable, try to undo the accomplished deed? What is done is done, and not Omnipotence itself, sir, could undo it.”

“But we may hinder further evil,” observed the seigneur.

“Ay? Would you keep out the lightning by high builded walls?” demanded the advocate, “for you are as likely to accomplish that, as to keep lovers from each other. No, let them alone, for they are as climbing Titans towards their wishes' skies; despising guardians' gates and fathers' fences, just as much as did Briareus and his crew disdain its rugged sides, and risk their necks up steep Olympus, when they were making war on Jove. You cannot bar them. The sun may be debarred from attics, and frost may be kept out of cellars, but, Monsieur Montigny, the mutually enamoured can never be permanently parted. Sir, no more.”

“Enamoured he, and she at length dishonoured,” cried the seigneur, disregarding the injunction.

“Her honour is its own sufficient guardian,” was responded.

“Have regard, sir, to your future peace,” was urged.

“Peace, sir, like silence, never comes for calling for,” rejoined the advocate.

“Impracticable man, have you no fear?” demanded the foiled Montigny upbraidingly.

“None for my ward; I hope you have as little for your son,” said the lawyer sarcastically.

“Your ward invites my son, by sitting upon the verandah at midnight, to attract him when he passes by, as the Hebrew woman, Tamar, once sat to decoy the foolish Judah. Do you deny this? I have learned all, all,” outburst the indignant seigneur.

“Do I deny it?” cried the advocate, the blood, in anger, rushing to his face. “Dare you affirm it? Monsieur, if you mean seriously to asperse my ward, I say, prepare;—not for the action of the law,—no, no, I hate the law, when it is cited for myself,—but for the action of an old man's arm. Sir, I have been a swordsman in my youth, and though the lank skeleton of my skill at fence is buried in disuse, it moves now in the grave of this right hand, that so long has wielded only the quiet quill. I do not bid you quail; not I,—but, by the angry devil of the duel, you answer me, either sword point to sword point; or from the pointing pistol, that shall speak both sharp and decisive, and the dotting bullet, perhaps, put a period to your proud life's scrawl. But no; I am grown too old to have recourse to violence. Away, go, go; but, mind you, do not breathe this calumny into a human ear,—no, not into the air. Shame, shame! you are no noble minded man, to villify my ward and your own son; whom, if I accounted to be as strangely base as you have shown yourself to be, and have depicted him, I would forbid to tread within my gates, and hound him from my door at Stillyside.”

“Words only anger you,” said the astonished and half daunted seigneur.

“Such words as yours have been:” was replied. “What! do you expect to strike upon a bank where bees have settled, yet not be stung; or dream to be allowed to draw the bare hand, clasping down a sword, but not be wounded?”

“What shall I say, yet not offend you?” soothingly enquired Montigny.

“Say what you will,” the advocate continued: “what can be worse than what you have said already?”

“Hear me,” said the seigneur, in the manner of one who is going to make a confidential proposal: “Either remove your ward, and receive a compensation for her absence, or quickly marry her, and I will provide her with a dower.”

“Now you are indeed a generous gentleman,” said the advocate, smiling; “You must have built churches, surely, or founded hospitals, and always have dealt out dollars liberally to the deserving. But you are wealthy, and can do these things without being impoverished. It is fortunate that you are wealthy, for I shall accept of no paltry sum. Only imagine, to have to banish her; to quench, or to remove, the very beam that fills my life with light. You must be liberal, if you would have me exile her Come, sign me a bond for what I shall demand.”

“You are in haste,” observed the seigneur, somewhat startled at the advocate catching so readily at the bait; but the latter was ready with his reply:

“Because your son may now be at Stillyside, and, whilst we are haggling, may carry off my ward,—or I might change my mind,” he answered.

“And I, too, may change mine,” was the rejoinder.

“Why, then, we are quits;” observed the advocate carelessly, and as if all parley were at an end; “we are as we were, and, for the young ones, they are as they were; but if I know the force of youthful blood, you, with all your endeavours, will not be able long to keep them apart.”

“What is your price for her expatriation?” demanded the seigneur sullenly, as if coming to terms; and the advocate replied:

“No, marry her, marry her; we will have her married. We either marry her or do nothing in this business, sir, which, after all, were, perhaps, best left to those who have most interest in it;—but if you think differently, be it yours to find the money, I will find the match:—and let it be understood, that you find her a dowry which would be fitting for a seigneur's daughter; or else, without a dowry, I shall not scruple to give her to a seigneur's son. Why are you silent?”

The proud, perplexed parent made no answer, but secretly groaned in his dilemma, and at length exclaimed: “Insatiate old man, have you no son, the thought of which may teach you to be just towards me and mine? What do I ask of you? Little,—or what would cost you little, yet you ask a fortune of me; and to enrich, too, one, whom, as a punishment, I have reason rather to desire should always be poor. Do not deny it; she has ensnared my son. It is impossible, that he who has roamed over half the world, and has yet come home uncaptivated, though in his travels he has met the fairest and the richest, can have been caught at the mere passing by your farm of Stillyside, can at a glance have been so smitten as to meditate this marriage. No, he has been decoyed, seduced. You might as well declare that a young eagle would not return to its nest, but plunge into some casually discovered coop, and roost there, as aver that, without some irregular influence, Claude Montigny would seek your ward in marriage. If she marry him, she will marry a beggar: not an acre of mine shall he inherit, not a dollar of mine will he receive. Give her a dowry? Give her a dukedom. No, sir; I will not buy brass from you at the price of gold; I will not subsidize you to avoid your ward.” And, with the words, he bowed himself out of the room, and the advocate, casting himself backwards in his easy chair, laughing, exclaimed: “Was ever such a proposition started?—started! yes; and shall eventually be carried. It is not what we do, but it is the motive that induced the deed, that gives the color to it. She shall be Madam Montigny, in spite of old Montigny's self; and for her dowry, (which I asked Montigny to provide, only that it might be returned to him through his son), I'll mortgage my old brains to procure it for her.”