第153章
"Mr. Scapgoat," said my wife, shaking her fist at him (for she is a woman of no small spirit), "if you don't leave this ground I'll have you pushed out with pitchforks, I will--you and your beggarly blackamoor yonder." And, suiting the action to the word, she clapped a stable fork into the hands of one of the gardeners, and called another, armed with a rake, to his help, while young Tug set the dog at their heels, and I hurrahed for joy to see such villany so properly treated.
"That's sufficient, ain't it?" said Mr. Scapgoat, with the calmest air in the world. "Oh, completely," said the lawyer. "Mr.
Tuggeridge, we've ten miles to dinner. Madam, your very humble servant." And the whole posse of them rode away.
LAW LIFE ASSURANCE.
We knew not what this meant, until we received a strange document from Higgs, in London--which begun, "Middlesex to wit. Samuel Cox, late of Portland Place, in the city of Westminster, in the said county, was attached to answer Samuel Scapgoat, of a plea, wherefore, with force and arms, he entered into one messuage, with the appurtenances, which John Tuggeridge, Esq., demised to the said Samuel Scapgoat, for a term which is not yet expired, and ejected him." And it went on to say that "we, with force of arms, viz, with swords, knives, and staves, had ejected him." Was there ever such a monstrous falsehood? when we did but stand in defence of our own; and isn't it a sin that we should have been turned out of our rightful possessions upon such a rascally plea?
Higgs, Biggs, and Blatherwick had evidently been bribed; for would you believe it?--they told us to give up possession at once, as a will was found, and we could not defend the action. My Jemmy refused their proposal with scorn, and laughed at the notion of the will: she pronounced it to be a forgery, a vile blackamoor forgery;and believes, to this day, that the story of its having been made thirty years ago, in Calcutta, and left there with old Tug's papers, and found there, and brought to England, after a search made by order of Tuggeridge junior, is a scandalous falsehood.
Well, the cause was tried. Why need I say anything concerning it?
What shall I say of the Lord Chief Justice, but that he ought to be ashamed of the wig he sits in? What of Mr. ---- and Mr. ----, who exerted their eloquence against justice and the poor? On our side, too, was no less a man than Mr. Serjeant Binks, who, ashamed I am, for the honor of the British bar, to say it, seemed to have been bribed too: for he actually threw up his case! Had he behaved like Mr. Mulligan, his junior--and to whom, in this humble way, I offer my thanks--all might have been well. I never knew such an effect produced, as when Mr. Mulligan, appearing for the first time in that court, said, "Standing here upon the pidestal of secred Thamis; seeing around me the arnymints of a profission I rispict;having before me a vinnerable judge, and an enlightened jury--the counthry's glory, the netion's cheap defender, the poor man's priceless palladium: how must I thrimble, my lard, how must the blush bejew my cheek--"(somebody cried out, "O CHEEKS!" In the court there was a dreadful roar of laughing; and when order was established, Mr. Mulligan continued:)--"My lard, I heed them not; Icome from a counthry accustomed to opprission, and as that counthry--yes, my lard, THAT IRELAND--(do not laugh, I am proud of it)--is ever, in spite of her tyrants, green, and lovely, and beautiful: my client's cause, likewise, will rise shuperior to the malignant imbecility--I repeat, the MALIGNANT IMBECILITY--of those who would thrample it down; and in whose teeth, in my client's name, in my counthry's--ay, and MY OWN--I, with folded arrums, hurl a scarnful and eternal defiance!""For heaven's sake, Mr. Milligan"--("MULLIGAN, ME LARD," cried my defender)--"Well, Mulligan, then, be calm, and keep to your brief."Mr. Mulligan did; and for three hours and a quarter, in a speech crammed with Latin quotations, and unsurpassed for eloquence, he explained the situation of me and my family; the romantic manner in which Tuggeridge the elder gained his fortune, and by which it afterwards came to my wife; the state of Ireland; the original and virtuous poverty of the Coxes--from which he glanced passionately, for a few minutes (until the judge stopped him), to the poverty of his own country; my excellence as a husband, father, landlord; my wife's, as a wife, mother, landlady. All was in vain--the trial went against us. I was soon taken in execution for the damages;five hundred pounds of law expenses of my own, and as much more of Tuggeridge's. He would not pay a farthing, he said, to get me out of a much worse place than the Fleet. I need not tell you that along with the land went the house in town, and the money in the funds. Tuggeridge, he who had thousands before, had it all. And when I was in prison, who do you think would come and see me?
None of the Barons, nor Counts, nor Foreign Ambassadors, nor Excellencies, who used to fill our house, and eat and drink at our expense,--not even the ungrateful Tagrag!
I could not help now saying to my dear wife, "See, my love, we have been gentlefolks for exactly a year, and a pretty life we have had of it. In the first place, my darling, we gave grand dinners, and everybody laughed at us.""Yes, and recollect how ill they made you," cries my daughter.
"We asked great company, and they insulted us.""And spoilt mamma's temper," said Jemimarann.
"Hush! Miss," said her mother; "we don't want YOUR advice.""Then you must make a country gentleman of me.""And send Pa into dunghills," roared Tug.
"Then you must go to operas, and pick up foreign Barons and Counts.""Oh, thank heaven, dearest papa, that we are rid of them," cries my little Jemimarann, looking almost happy, and kissing her old pappy.