When the day arrived that the Chief Baron was to resume his place on the Bench, no small share of excitement was seen to prevail within the precincts of the Four Courts. Many opined that his recovery was far from perfect, and that it was not his intention ever to return to the justice-seat. Some maintained that the illness had been far less severe than was pretended, and that he had employed the attack as a means of pressure on the Government, to accord to his age and long services the coveted reward. Less argumentative partisans there were who were satisfied to wager that he would or would not reappear on the Bench, and bets were even laid that he would come for one last time, as though to show the world in what full vigor of mind and intellect was the man the Government desired to consign to inactivity and neglect.

It is needless to say that he was no favorite with the Bar. There was scarcely a man, from the highest to the lowest, whom he had not on some occasion or another snubbed, ridiculed, or reprimanded. Whose law had he not controverted? Whose acuteness had he not exposed, whose rhetoric not made jest of? The mere presence of ability before him seemed to stimulate his combative spirit, and incite him to a passage at arms with one able to defend himself. No first-rate man could escape the shafts of his barbed and pointed wit; it was only dulness, hopeless dulness, that left his court with praise of his urbanity and an eulogy over his courteous demeanor.

Now, hopeless dulness is not the characteristic of the Irish Bar, and with the majority the Chief Baron was the reverse of popular.

No small tribute was it therefore to his intellectual superiority, to that mental power that all acknowledged while they dreaded, that his appearance was greeted with a murmur of approbation, which swelled louder and louder as he moved across the hall, till it burst out at last into a hoarse, full cheer of welcome. Mounting the steps with difficulty, the pale old man, seared with age and wrinkled with care, turned round towards the vast crowd, and with an eye of flashing brightness, and a heightened color, pressed his hand upon his heart, and bowed. A very slight motion it was,—less, far less, perhaps, than a sovereign might have accorded; but in its dignity and grace it was a perfect recognition of all the honor he felt had been done him.

How broken! how aged! how fearfully changed! were the whispered remarks that were uttered around as he took his seat on the Bench, and more significant even than words were the looks interchanged when he attempted to speak, and instead of that clear metallic ring which once had been audible even outside the court, a faint murmuring sound was only heard.

A few commonplace motions were made and discharged. A somewhat wearisome argument followed on a motion for a new trial, and the benches of the Bar gradually grew thinner and thinner, as the interest of the scene wore off, and as each in turn had scanned, and, after his own fashion, interpreted, the old Judge's powers of mind and body; when suddenly, and as it were without ostensible cause, the court began to fill,—bench after bench was occupied, till at last even all the standing-space was crowded; and when the massive curtain moved aside, vast numbers were seen without, eagerly trying to enter. At first the Chief Baron appeared not to notice the change, but his sharp eye no sooner detected it than he followed with his glance the directed gaze of the crowd, and saw it fixed on the gallery, opposite the jury-box, now occupied by a well-dressed company, in the midst of whom, conspicuous above all, sat Lady Lendrick. So well known were the relations that subsisted between himself and his wife, such publicity had been given to their hates and quarrels, that her presence here was regarded as a measure of shameless indelicacy. In the very defiant look, too, that she bestowed on the body of the court she seemed to accept the imputation, and to dare it.

Leisurely and calmly did she scan the old man's features through her double eyeglass, while from time to time, with a simpering smile, she would whisper some words to the lady at her side,—words it was not needful to overhear, they were so palpably words of critical comment upon him she gazed at.

So engrossed was attention by the indecency of this intrusion, which had not even the shallow pretext of an interesting cause to qualify it, that it was only after a considerable time it was perceived that the lady who sat next Lady Lendrick was exceedingly beautiful. If no longer in her first youth, there were traits of loveliness in her perfectly formed features which even years respect; and in the depth of her orbits and the sculptural elegance of her nostrils and her mouth, there was all that beauty we love to call Greek, but in which no classic model ever could compete with the daughters of England.

Her complexion was of exceeding delicacy, as was the half-warm tint of her light-brown hair. But it was when she smiled that the captivation of her beauty became perfect; and it seemed as though each and all there appropriated that radiant favor to himself, and felt his heart bound with a sort of ecstasy. It had been rumored in the morning through the hall that the Chief Baron, at the rising of the Court, would deliver a short reply to the address of the Bar; and now, as the last motion was being disposed of, the appearance of eager expectation and curiosity became conspicuous on every side.

That the unlooked-for presence of his wife had irritated and embarrassed the old man, was plain to the least observant. The stern expression of his features; the steadfast way in which he gazed into the body of the court, to avoid even a chance glance at the gallery; the fretful impatience with which he moved his hands restlessly amongst his papers,—all showed discomposure and uneasiness. Still, it was well known that the moment he was called on for a mental effort intellect ever assumed the mastery over temper, and all felt that when he should arise not a trace of embarrassment would remain to mar the calm dignity of his manner.

It was amidst a hushed silence that he stood up, and said: “Mr. Chief Sergeant, and Gentlemen of the Bar: I had intended to-day,—I had even brought down with me some notes of a reply which I purposed to make to the more than flattering address which you so graciously offered to me. I find, however, that I have overrated the strength that remains to me. I find I have measured my power to thank you by the depth of my gratitude, and not by the vigor of my frame. I am too weak to say all that I feel, and too deeply your debtor to ask you to accept less than I owe you. Had the testimony of esteem you presented to me only alluded to those gifts of mind and intellect with which a gracious Providence was pleased to endow me,—had you limited yourself to the recognition of the lawyer and the judge,—I might possibly have found strength to assure you that I accepted your praise with the consciousness that it was not all unmerited. The language of your address, however, went beyond this; your words were those of regard, even of affection. I am unused to such as these, gentlemen,—they unsettle—they unman me. Physicians tell us that the nerves of the student acquire a morbid and diseased acuteness for want of those habits of action and physical exertion which more vulgar organizations practise. So do I feel that the mental faculties gain an abnormal intensity in proportion as the affections are neglected, and the soil of the heart left untilled.

“Mine have been worse than ignored,” said he, with an elevated tone, and in a voice that rang through the court,—“they have been outraged; and when the time comes that biography will have to deal with my character and my fortunes, if there be but justice in the award, the summing-up will speak of me as one ever linked with a destiny that was beneath him. He was a lawyer,—he ought to have been a legislator. He sat on the Bench, while his place was the Cabinet; and when at the end of a laborious life his brethren rallied round him with homage and with tender regard, they found him like a long beleaguered city starved into submission, carrying a bold port towards the enemy, but torn by dissension within, and betrayed by the very garrison that should have died in its defence.”

The savage fierceness of these words turned every eye in the court to the gallery, where Lady Lendrick sat, and where, with a pleasant smile on her face, she not only listened with seeming pleasure, but beat time with her fan to the rhythm of the well-rounded periods.

A quivering of the lip, and a strange flattening of the cheek of one side, succeeded to the effort with which he delivered these words, and when he attempted to speak again his voice failed him; and after a few attempts he placed his hand on his brow, and with a look of intense and most painful significancy, bowed around him to both sides of the court and retired.

“That woman, that atrocious woman, has killed him,” muttered poor Haire, as he hastened to the Judge's robing-room.

“I am sorry, my dear, you should not have heard him in a better vein, for he is really eloquent at times,” said Lady Lendrick to her beautiful companion, as they moved through the crowd to their carriage.

“I trust his present excitement will not have bad consequences,” said the other, softly. “Don't you think we ought to wait and ask how he is?”

“If you like. I have only one objection, and that is, that we may be misconstrued. There are people here malicious enough to impute the worst of motives to our anxiety. Oh, here is Mr. Pemberton! Mr. Pemberton, will you do me the great favor to inquire how the Chief Baron is? Would you do more, and say that I am most eager to know if I could be of any use to him?”

If Mr. Pemberton had no fancy for his mission, he could not very well decline it. While he was absent, the ladies took a turn through the hall, inspecting the two or three statues of distinguished lawyers, and scanning the living faces, whose bewigged expression seemed to blend the over-wise and the ridiculous in the strangest imaginable manner.

A sudden movement in the crowd betokened some event; and now, through a lane formed in the dense mass, the Chief Baron was seen approaching. He had divested himself of his robes, and looked the younger for the change. Indeed, there was an almost lightness in his step, as he came forward, and with a bland smile said: “I am most sensible of the courtesy that led you here. I only wish my strength had been more equal to the occasion.” And he took Lady Lendrick's hand with a mingled deference and regard.

“Sir William, this is my daughter-in-law. She only arrived yesterday, but was determined not to lose the opportunity of hearing you.”

“To have heard me to-day was disappointment,” said the old man, as he raised the young lady's hand to his lips; “to see her is none. I am charmed to meet one so closely tied to me,—of such exquisite beauty. Ah, Madam! it's a dear-bought privilege, this candid appreciation of loveliness we old men indulge in. May I offer you my arm?”

And now through the dense crowd they passed along,—all surprised and amazed at the courteous attentions of the old Judge, whom but a few moments before they had seen almost convulsed with passion.

“She almost had won the game, Haire,” said the Chief Baron, as, having handed the ladies to their carriage, he went in search of his own. “But I have mated her. My sarcasm has never given me one victory with that woman,” said he, sternly. “I have never conquered her except by courtesy.”

“Why did she come down to court at all?” blurted out Haire; “it was positively indecent.”

“The Spanish women go to bull-fights, but I never heard that they stepped down into, the arena. She has great courage,—very great courage.”

“Who was the handsome woman with her?”

“Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sewell. Now, that is what I call beauty, Haire. There is the element which is denied to us men,—to subdue without effort, to conquer without conflict.”

“Your granddaughter is handsomer, to my thinking.”

“They are like each other,—strangely like. They have the same dimpling of the cheek before they smile, and her laugh has the same ring as Lucy's.”

Haire muttered something, not very intelligibly, indeed, but certainly not sounding like assent.

“Lady Lendrick had asked me to take these Sewells in at the Priory, and I refused her. Perhaps I 'd have been less peremptory had I seen this beauty. Yes, sir! There is a form of loveliness—this woman has it—as distinctly an influence as intellectual superiority, or great rank, or great riches. To deny its power you must live out of the world, and reject all the ordinances of society.”

“Coquettes, I suppose, have their followers; but I don't think you or I need be of the number.”

“You speak with your accustomed acuteness, Haire; but coquetry is the exercise of many gifts, beauty is the display of one. I can parry off the one; I cannot help feeling the burning rays of the other. Come, come, don't sulk; I am not going to undervalue your favorite Lucy. They have promised to dine with me on Sunday; you must meet them.”

“Dine with you!—dine with you, after what you said today in open court!”

“That I could invite them, and they accept my invitation, is the best reply to those who would, in their malevolence, misinterpret whatever may have fallen from me. The wound of a sharp arrow is never very painful till some inexpert bungler endeavors to withdraw the weapon. It is then that agony becomes excruciating, and peril imminent.”

“I suppose I am the bungler, then?”

“Heaven forbid I should say so! but as I have often warned you, Haire, your turn for sarcasm is too strong for even your good sense. When you have shotted your gun with a good joke, you will make a bull's eye of your best friend.”

“By George, then, I don't know myself, that's all; and I could as easily imagine myself a rich man as a witty one.”

“You are rich in gifts more precious than money; and you have the quintessence of all wit in that property that renders you suggestive; it is like what chemists call latent heat. But to return to Mrs. Sewell: she met my son at the Cape, and reports favorably of his health and prospects.”

“Poor fellow! what a banishment he must feel it!”

“I wonder, sir, how many of us go through life without sacrifices! She says that he goes much into the world, and is already very popular in the society of the place,—a great and happy change to a man who had suffered his indolence and self-indulgence to master him. Had he remained at home, I might have been able to provide for him. George Ogle's place is vacant, and I am determined to exercise my right of appointment.”

“First Registrar, was he not?”

“Yes; a snug berth for incapacity,—one thousand a year. Ogle made more of it by means we shall not inquire into, but which shall not be repeated.”

“You ought to give it to your grandson,” said Haire, bluntly.

“You ought to know better than to say so, sir,” said the Judge, with a stern severity. “It is to men like myself the public look for example and direction, and it would be to falsify all the teaching of my life if I were to misuse my patronage. Come up early on Saturday morning, and go over the lists with me. There are one hundred and twenty-three applicants, backed by peers, bishops, members of Parliament, and men in power.”

“I don't envy you your patronage.”

“Of course not, sir. The one hundred and twenty-two disappointed candidates would present more terror to a mind like yours than any consciousness of a duty fulfilled would compensate for; but I am fashioned of other stuff.”

“Well, I only hope it may be a worthy fellow gets it.”

“If you mean worthy in what regards a devotion to the public service, I may possibly be able to assure you on that head.”

“No, no; I mean a good fellow,—a true-hearted, honest fellow, to whom the salary will be a means of comfort and happiness.”

“Sir, you ask far too much. Men in my station investigate fitness and capacity; they cannot descend to inquire how far the domestic virtues influence those whom they advance to office.”

“You may drop me here: I am near home,” said Haire, who began to feel a little weary of being lectured.

“You will not dine with me?”

“Not to-day. I have some business this evening. I have a case to look over.”

“Come up on Saturday, then,—come to breakfast; bring me any newspapers that treat of the appointment, and let us see if we cannot oppose this spirit of dictation they are so prone to assume; for I am resolved I will never name a man to office who has the Press for his patron.”

“It may not be his fault.”

“It shall be his misfortune, then. Stop, Drab; Mr. Haire wishes to get down. To the Priory,” said he, as his friend went his way; and now, leaning back in his carriage, the old man continued to talk aloud, and, addressing an imaginary audience, declaim against the encroaching spirit of the newspapers, and inveigh against the perils to which their irresponsible counsels exposed the whole framework of society; and thus speaking, and passionately gesticulating, he reached his home.