CHAPTER III.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF MR. ROBINSON.

And haberdashery it was. But here it may be as well to say a few words as to Mr. Robinson, and to explain how he became a member of the firm. He had been in his boyhood—a bill-sticker; and he defies the commercial world to show that he ever denied it. In his earlier days he carried the paste and pole, and earned a livelihood by putting up notices of theatrical announcements on the hoardings of the metropolis. There was, however, that within him which Nature did not intend to throw away on the sticking of bills, as was found out quickly enough by those who employed him. The lad, while he was running the streets with his pole in his hand, and his pot round his neck, learned first to read, and then to write what others might read. From studying the bills which he carried, he soon took to original composition; and it may be said of him, that in fluency of language and richness of imagery few surpassed him. In person Mr. Robinson was a genteel young man, though it cannot be said of him that he possessed manly beauty. He was slight and active, intelligent in his physiognomy, and polite in his demeanour. Perhaps it may be unnecessary to say anything further on this head.

Mr. Robinson had already established himself as an author in his own line, and was supporting himself decently by his own unaided abilities, when he first met Maryanne Brown in the Regent’s Park. She was then walking with her sister, and resolutely persisted in disregarding all those tokens of admiration which he found himself unable to restrain.

There certainly was a dash about Maryanne Brown that at certain moments was invincible. Hooped petticoats on the back of her sister looked like hoops, and awkward hoops. They were angular, lopsided, and lumpy. But Maryanne wore her hoops as a duchess wears her crinoline. Her well-starched muslin dress would swell off from her waist in a manner that was irresistible to George Robinson. “Such grouping!” as he said to his friend Walker. “Such a flow of drapery! such tournure! Ah, my dear fellow, the artist’s eye sees these things at a glance.” And then, walking at a safe distance, he kept his eyes on them.

“I’m sure that fellow’s following us,” said Sarah Jane, looking back at him with all her scorn.

“There’s no law against that, I suppose,” said Maryanne tartly. So much as that Mr. Robinson did succeed in hearing.

The girls entered their mother’s house; but as they did so, Maryanne lingered for a moment in the doorway. Was it accident, or was it not? Did the fair girl choose to give her admirer one chance, or was it that she was careful not to crush her starch by too rapid an entry?

“I shall be in Regent’s Park on Sunday afternoon,” whispered Robinson, as he passed by the house, with his hand to his mouth. It need hardly be said that the lady vouchsafed him no reply.

On the following Sunday George Robinson was again in the park, and after wandering among its rural shades for half a day, he was rewarded by seeing the goddess of his idolatry. Miss Brown was there with a companion, but not with Sarah Jane. He had already, as though by instinct, conceived in his heart as powerful an aversion for one sister as affection for the other, and his delight was therefore unbounded when he saw that she he loved was there, while she he hated was away.

’Twere long to tell, at the commencement of this narrative, how a courtship was commenced and carried on; how Robinson sighed, at first in vain and then not in vain; how good-natured was Miss Twizzle, the bosom friend of Maryanne; and how Robinson for a time walked and slept and fed on roses.

There was at that time a music class held at a certain elegant room near Osnaburgh Church in the New Road, at which Maryanne and her friend Miss Twizzle were accustomed to attend. Those lessons were sometimes prosecuted in the evening, and those evening studies sometimes resulted in a little dance. We may say that after a while that was their habitual tendency, and that the lady pupils were permitted to introduce their male friends on condition that the gentlemen paid a shilling each for the privilege. It was in that room that George Robinson passed the happiest hours of his chequered existence. He was soon expert in all the figures of the mazy dance, and was excelled by no one in the agility of his step or the endurance of his performances. It was by degrees rumoured about that he was something higher than he seemed to be, and those best accustomed to the place used to call him the Poet. It must be remembered that at this time Mrs. McCockerell was still alive, and that as Sarah Jane had then become Mrs. Jones, Maryanne was her mother’s favourite, and destined to receive all her mother’s gifts. Of the name and person of William Brisket, George Robinson was then in happy ignorance, and the first introduction between them took place in that Hall of Harmony.

’Twas about eleven o’clock in the evening, when the light feet of the happy dancers had already been active for some hour or so in the worship of their favourite muse, that Robinson was standing up with his arm round his fair one’s waist, immediately opposite to the door of entrance. His right arm still embraced her slight girdle, whilst with his left hand he wiped the perspiration from his brow. She leaned against him palpitating, for the motion of the music had been quick, and there had been some amicable contest among the couples. It is needless to say that George Robinson and Maryanne Brown had suffered no defeat. At that moment a refreshing breeze of the night air was wafted into the room from the opened door, and Robinson, looking up, saw before him a sturdy, thickset man, with mottled beefy face, and by his side there stood a spectre. “It’s your sister,” whispered he to Maryanne, in a tone of horror.

“Oh, laws! there’s Bill,” said she, and then she fainted. The gentleman with the mottled face was indeed no other than Mr. Brisket, the purveyor of meat, for whose arms Mrs. McCockerell had destined the charms of her younger daughter. Conduct baser than that of Mrs. Jones on this occasion is not perhaps recorded in history. She was no friend of Brisket’s. She had it not at heart to forward her mother’s views. At this period of their lives she and her mother never met. But she had learned her sister’s secret, and having it in her power to crush her sister’s happiness, had availed herself of the opportunity.

“There he is,” said she, quite aloud, so that the whole room should hear. “He’s a bill-sticker!” and she pointed the finger of scorn at her sister’s lover.

“I’m one who have always earned my own living,” said Robinson, “and never had occasion to hang on to any one.” This he said knowing that Jones’s lodgings were paid for by Mr. Brown.

Hereupon Mr. Brisket walked across the room, and as he walked there was a cloud of anger on his brow. “Perhaps, young man,” he said,—and as he spoke he touched Robinson on the shoulder,—“perhaps, young man, you wouldn’t mind having a few words with me outside the door.”

“Sir,” said the other with some solemnity, “I am not aware that I have the honour of your acquaintance.”

“I’m William Brisket, butcher,” said he; “and if you don’t come out when I asks you, by jingo, I’ll carry you.”

The lady had fainted. The crowd of dancers was standing round with inquiring faces. That female spectre repeated the odious words, still pointing at him with her finger, “He’s a bill-sticker!” Brisket was full fourteen stone, whereas Robinson might perhaps be ten. What was Robinson to do?

“Are you going to walk out, or am I going to carry you?” said the Hercules of the slaughter-house.

“I will do anything,” said Robinson, “to relieve a lady’s embarrassment.”

They walked out on to the landing-place, whither not a few of the gentlemen and some of the ladies followed them.

“I say, young man,” said Brisket, “do you know who that young woman is?”

“I certainly have the honour of her acquaintance,” said Robinson.

“But perhaps you haven’t the honour of knowing that she’s my wife,—as is to be. Now you know it.” And then the coarse monster eyed him from head to foot. “Now you may go home to your mother,” said he. “But don’t tell her anything of it, because it’s a secret.”

He was fifteen stone at least, and Robinson was hardly ten. Oh, how vile is the mastery which matter still has over mind in many of the concerns of life! How can a man withstand the assault of a bull? What was Robinson to do? He walked downstairs into the street, leaving Maryanne behind with the butcher.

Some days after this he contrived a meeting with his love, and he then learned the history of that engagement.

“She hated Brisket,” she said. “He was odious to her. He was always greasy and smelt of meat;—but he had a respectable business.”

“And is my Maryanne mercenary?” said Robinson.

“Now, George,” said she, “it’s no use you scolding me, and I won’t be scolded. Ma says that I must be civil to him, and I’m not going to quarrel with ma. At any rate not yet.”

“But surely, Maryanne——”

“It’s no good you surelying me, George, for I won’t be surelyed. If you don’t like me, you can leave me.”

“Maryanne, I adore you.”

“That’s all very well, and I hope you do; but why did you make a row with that man the other night?”

“But, dearest love, he made the row with me.”

“And when you did make it,” continued Maryanne, “why didn’t you see it out?”

Robinson did not find it easy to answer. That matter has still dominion over mind, though the days are coming when mind shall have dominion over matter, was a lesson which, in after days, it would be sweet to teach her. But at the present moment the time did not serve for such teaching.

“A man must look after his own, George, or else he’ll go to the wall,” she said, with a sneer. And then he parted from her in anger.

But his love did not on that account wax cool, and so in his misery he had recourse to their mutual friend, Miss Twizzle.

“The truth is this,” said Miss Twizzle, “I believe she’d take him, because he’s respectable and got a business.”

“He’s horribly vulgar,” said Robinson.

“Oh, bother!” said Miss Twizzle. “I know nothing about that. He’s got a business, and whoever marries Brisket won’t have to look for a bed to sleep on. But there’s a hitch about the money.”

Then Mr. Robinson learned the facts. Mrs. McCockerell, as she was still called, had promised to give her daughter five hundred pounds as her marriage portion, but Mr. Brisket would not go to the altar till he got the money. “He wanted to extend himself,” he said, “and would not marry till he saw his way.” Hence had arisen that delay which Maryanne had solaced by her attendance at the music-hall.

“But if you’re in earnest,” said Miss Twizzle, “don’t you be down on your luck. Go to old Brown, and make friends with him. He’ll stand up for you, because he knows his wife favours Brisket.”

George Robinson did go to Mr. Brown, and on the father the young man’s eloquence was not thrown away.

“She shall be yours, Mr. Robinson,” he said, after the first fortnight. “But we must be very careful with Mrs. B.”

After the second fortnight Mrs. B. was no more! And in this way it came to pass that George Robinson was present as Mr. Brown’s adviser when that scheme respecting the haberdashery was first set on foot.

At Westminster.

This is Westminster Hall. You know it at once. To your left is one door for Parliament; to your right are seven, for the lawyers. If you peep into the first of these legal entrances, you will probably see the cake-woman; and if the court is sitting you will certainly find an eager knot of grey-bearded, spectacled, wigged, and gowned barristers, engaged on “three corners,” Bath buns, and pennyworths of plum gingerbread. Passing through this reminiscence of schooldays, you will bewilder yourself among a series of doors that shut one upon another. You will possibly avoid the cross-cutting and divergent passages, and, with the help of a sad policeman, lifting a heavy crimson curtain, you will take off your hat, and find yourself in a court of justice. The first thing you look for is a “place,” which you find high up in the back seats; and when this has been climbed into, with more or less noise, you find yourself facing the bench. By the bench, of course I mean the judges. They are peculiar. Their dress is rather startling at first, till you get used to it; but it is nothing to their caps, which are represented by a little black spot on the top of the wig, and, therefore, may be said to out-muffin the muffin cap of the Bluecoat boy. You may, perhaps, imagine that a remorseful, or, perhaps, shamefaced feeling on the part of the last invented judge has led to his contenting himself with a mere white spot. But be this as it may, from reasons of either dress or feature, our judges do not quite look like ordinary human beings; at all events, the casual observer is sure to deny them that privilege. One likens a celebrated dispenser of justice to a benevolent and intellectual gorilla; another believes that all judges give one some dim idea of a blinking, dozy kind of barn owl; a third suggests good old ladies—motherly persons, given to advice and management, and the having of their own way; while one more daring has even compared the celebrated and, as I said before, “newly invented” summer up, to a jolly apple-cheeked old maid, sitting in judgment upon her married sisters. Perhaps it is not until these humourists see them as judges in their own cause that they discover them to be neither blind, weak, nor old-womanish.

[Illustration: The Plaintiff.

The Defendant.]

[Illustration: The Jury.]

But between the back seats and the bench, look for the bar, and if you don’t exactly see the bar, you will the counsel, which is the same thing. Possibly you may hear them—for they are given to talking; to each other, if they have no better resource; but to the jury, or at all events to the judge, if they can find an occasion: some who, curiously enough, have round noses, round eyes, round mouths, and double chins, are sonorous, emphatic, and what we will call portwiney: others are ponderous, slow, chest-speaking men, but these are mostly tall, lank, and coarse-haired, with terrible noses—long, from the bridge downward, and blunt at the point; some, again, of the sharp, acid, suspicious sort—shriek a great deal; while there are a few—great men these—who are so confidential and communicative, that they seem (using a colloquial phrase) to talk to the jury “like a father.”

Among the counsel who having nothing to say either for self or client, and who (as I suppose, consequently) amuse themselves with a great deal of light-porter’s work, in carrying fat bags, full of important papers; there are many who make a great show of extracting valuable precedents from thick calf-bound law books, and having neither briefs to study nor motions to make, engage themselves in inditing the obscurest directions for further thick volumes, on the smallest slips of paper procurable, which slips—folded into the semblance of pipe-lights—they, at the hazard of turning illegal summersaults, pass on to the short usher with the bald head.

But do not, for one moment, imagine that when you have looked at the judges and the counsel and taken in the general aspect and bearings of the court, that you have at all exhausted its points of interest; on the contrary, the “interest” is all to come. You wish to know what is going on—is it debt or slander? breach of promise or breach of contract? and curiously enough, it is generally the latter. Contracts of all sorts, that are supposed to form a kind of barrier against law, and which, at all events, are held as safeguards or talismans, are mostly the direct road to that monosyllabic mantrap; some people never think of breaking a contract so long as it is merely implied, but reduced to black and white they want to tear a hole in it directly,—indeed, in the sense in which it has been said that all mischief is caused by woman, you will find that every action at law has a “document” lying at the bottom of it—from promissory notes up to architects’ estimates, this will always hold good.

Well, having seen both Bench and Bar, and wishing to understand what they are both engaged in, let us suppose a case. We will say that an obstinate man, one Bullhead, has his action against a plausible man, one Floater. Now the unconvincible Bullhead, who thinks that he has never yet been taken in, has somehow at various times, and upon the flimsiest of all possible pretences, handed over to said Floater sums of money to the amount of—say two hundred pounds: between the possible inconvenience of losing so large a sum of money and the wish to show that his wisdom is equal to his obstinacy, he has brought the little dispute out of his own frying-pan into the judicial fire.

There he stands, or rather leans in the witness-box, carefully checking off his short answers with his forefinger on the sleeve of his coat, and screwing his face on one side, as if to concentrate all his intellect into the left eye that is so widely open; he looks very untractable, with his stumpy brows knitted closely over his thick stumpy nose; but what chance can he possibly have against such a cool hand as the defendant, Floater, Esq., with his very white stick-up hair bearing witness to his respectability, and his very black lay-down eyebrows covering the unbarnacled portion of those side-glancing eyes? How gently his jewelled fingers are laid on the edge of the witness-box! how shockingly informal the “document”—of whatever sort—proves to be during his examination—what a respectable man he is! Three letters after his name. Do you think he would have trusted himself in such a lion’s den as this if he were not assured of getting the best of it? Oh, no! this is the sort of thing—either in court or out of court—that he lives on, and lives very well too. Barring anxieties and worries, which all are liable to—with the exception of constant flitting, which, to some people, is a mere matter of health; put on one side a few visits to the Queen’s Bench, and this is a highly prosperous man! He has his spring lamb out of its due season; asparagus; five suits of clothes and three servants; he has managed somehow to rear a large family, and, what is more, to dispose of them in various ways; he will, most probably, fail in accumulating money, may, perhaps, die in extreme poverty—there is no knowing; but as he is not a miser, as he began life without a farthing, and as, moreover, he is an easy-going sort of philosopher in his way, he may content himself to the last; and contentment, as we know, is a very hard thing to compass after all.

Of course, and as usual, the jury hardly know what to make of it; the stout foreman inclines to the plaintiff in despite of law; but he is evidently puzzled all the same; the thin man with the bridgy nose, the cold man with the round head, and the argumentative juryman with the mutton-chop whisker, all look at it, as they say, “legally,” and decide in favour of the defendant. The jocular “party,” with the curly red hair and the two tufts of chin-growing beard, treats it all as good fun, and is ready to give his verdict for the defendant too, because as he says:—“He is such a jolly old humbug, you know,” which mode of settlement, however, is not looked upon as sufficient by his two neighbours, to whom it is a much more serious matter. One of these is trying to make up his mind, a feat he has never yet successfully accomplished, so I suppose that as usual it will be made up for him by somebody else; as for the other, after three hours’ reflection he has really come to a decision, but, unfortunately, it is entirely opposed to everything that the judge will tell them in his summing up, and of course they will all be led by his lordship.

My lord is neither a mumbling nor a short-tempered judge; he will take them in hand kindly, explain away both counsel for plaintiff and for defendant, and read them a great deal of his notes, which are a thousandfold clearer, fuller, and more accurate than the reporter’s “flimsy,” although during the trial he has been distinctly seen to write four long letters, has gone twice to sleep, and has made seven recondite legal jokes, including the famous ever-recurring and side-splitting innuendo of calling upon the usher to cry silence, or “Sss-h,” whenever the somewhat indistinctly speaking junior for the plaintiff rises—there will be no withstanding his clear-headedness.

[Illustration: The Judge.

The Counsel.]

As you would imagine, these jurors have been in turn led away by the opposing counsel. For the plaintiff; they were made to admire the consummate common sense and discretion of the plaintiff, Bullhead, who having diluted his ordinary keenness with that admirable faith in human nature, which is the keystone of all commercial transactions in this arcadian world, has for the first time in his life, found his confidence misplaced by the conduct of the defendant. Said the advocate: far be it from him to call Floater, Esq., M.Q.S., by any derogatory appellations; he was not a swindler, he was not a rogue, he was not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he was perhaps the victim of a misconception or a want of memory, but a very honourable man all the same—an opinion which the jury would endorse by giving full damages to his discreet and sensible client.

[Illustration: The Attorneys.]

But, said the counsel for the defendant—a foxy man with reddish hair, angular eyes, and a mouth that seems to have a hole punched in each end of it: he would not call Mr. Bullhead a villain of the deepest die, he would not say that he had laid a plot to blast the happiness of the domestic health of his unfortunate, his scrupulously respectable, and he would add his distinguished client; no, not he—far from it, he would suppose that an obtuseness of intellect on the part of the, at all events, short-tempered plaintiff, had led him to imagine, and so forth. And by the way, notice how these foxy counsel do cuddle themselves up, how they look askance, and wriggle about to show their honesty and straightforwardness,—for indeed I suppose we must admit that they are honest and straightforward from their point of view, although they do shake their heads at his lordship whenever a particularly damaging statement is put forward by the opposite side, and although they do paint black with a grey tint, and find a few spots upon the purest white. Thank goodness, they have the attorneys to throw the blame upon when there happens to be any, and the attorneys sitting under the bar, and putting their heads together, have, I suppose, shoulders broad enough to bear it.

These two do not look ingenuous: here is the smooth and the rough. The rough one never seems to believe a word that is said to him, while the smooth one appears to take in everything. The one, half shutting his eyes, draws his face down and his forehead up, into all the fifty lines of unbelief, while Smoothman drags his cheeks into such a lovely smiling look of faith in everything you have to propose, that you really begin to wonder how that underhung jaw and knitted brow came into the same company. Well, there is not very much to choose between them—if Diogenes is given to sharp practice, Smoothman is a very bulldog for holding on wherever he gets his teeth in; and for twisting a grievance into court, for sublimating an action into a verdict, and a verdict into bills of costs, I think they are equally to be trusted.

So we will say that this trial has gone against the angry plaintiff; that it is one more feather in the cap of Foxy Q.C., and money in the purse to Floater, M.Q.S.; that the jury are aware of having supported the glory of the English nation and the majesty of the law; that the learned judge, disrobed and unwigged, is no longer a good old lady, but a distinguished gentleman; and the ushers having cried Ssss-h all the day, which seems to be their responsible and arduous and only duty, are going home to dinner, leaving the reporters to pack up and follow.

One word about the “Press” before we part. Just one word to note the elderly press-man, who is of a shrewd, parroty appearance, and who has sat in court so many years reporting, that his grey hair has at last taken the form, colour, and texture of a judge’s wig: his aspect is severe; he seems to have imbibed the spirit of that justice which he has passed his life in recording.

Agnes of Sorrento.