University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

—In Westminster Hall.
1st Barrister.
They say the Lord Chief Justice is unwell;
Did you observe how, after that decision
Which all the world admired so, suddenly
He became pale and looked in the air and staggered,
As if some phantom floated on his eyes?
He is a strange man.

Bar. 2.
He is unwell, there is no doubt of that,
But why or how is quite another question.
It is odd to find so stern and strong a man
Give way before he's sixty. Many a mind,
Apparently less vigorous than his,
Has kept its full judicial faculty,
And sat the woolsack past threescore and ten.

Bar. 3.
No business to be done to-day. Have you heard
The Chief Justice is lying dangerously ill?
Apoplexy, paralysis, Heaven knows what—some seizure.

Bar. 1.
Heavens! that will be a loss indeed!

Bar. 2.
A loss
Which will be some one's gain, however.

Bar. 1.
Not the nation's,
If this sage Chancellor give it to ---.
But is he really sure to die, do you think?

Bar. 3.
A very sudden and very alarming attack.
And now you know to the full as much as I,
Or, as I fancy, any lawyer here.

Bar. 2.
Do you know anything of his early life?

Bar. 1.
My father knew him at college: a reading man,
The quietest of the quiet, shy and timid.
And college honours past,
No one believed he ever would do anything.

Bar. 2.
He was a moral sort of prig, I've heard,
Till he was twenty-five; and even then
He never entered into life as most men.
That is the reason why he fails so soon.
It takes high feeding and a well-taught conscience
To breed your mighty hero of the law.
So much the worse for him; so much the better
For all expectants now.

Bar. 3.
For ------, for one.

Bar. 2.
Well, there'll be several changes, as I think.
Not that I think the shock of new promotion
Will vibrate quite perceptibly down here.
There was a story that I once was told,
Some woman that they used to tease him with.

Bar. 1.
He grew too stern for teasing before long;
A man with greater power of what I think
They call, in some new sense of the word, Repulsion,
I think I never saw in all my life.

Bar. 2.
A most forbidding man in private life,
I've always heard. What's this new news?

Bar. 4.
The Lord Chief Justice has resigned.

Bar. 1, 2, 3.
Is it true?
Really? Quite certain?

Bar. 4.
Publicly announced.
You're quite behind. Most probably ere this
The Times has got it in a new edition.