Long ago as it is, everyone remembers the terrible and grotesque scene that occurred in--, when one of the most acute and forcible of the English judges suddenly went mad on the bench.I had my own view of that occurrence; but about the facts themselves there is no question at all.For some months, indeed for some years, people had detected something curious in the judge's conduct.He seemed to have lost interest in the law, in which he had been beyond expression brilliant and terrible as a K.C., and to be occupied in giving personal and moral advice to the people concerned.He talked more like a priest or a doctor, and a very outspoken one at that.The first thrill was probably given when he said to a man who had attempted a crime of passion: "I sentence you to three years imprisonment, under the firm, and solemn, and God-given conviction, that what you require is three months at the seaside."He accused criminals from the bench, not so much of their obvious legal crimes, but of things that had never been heard of in a court of justice, monstrous egoism, lack of humour, and morbidity deliberately encouraged.Things came to a head in that celebrated diamond case in which the Prime Minister himself, that brilliant patrician, had to come forward, gracefully and reluctantly, to give evidence against his valet.After the detailed life of the household had been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the Premier again to step forward, which he did with quiet dignity.
The judge then said, in a sudden, grating voice: "Get a new soul.
That thing's not fit for a dog.Get a new soul." All this, of course, in the eyes of the sagacious, was premonitory of that melancholy and farcical day when his wits actually deserted him in open court.It was a libel case between two very eminent and powerful financiers, against both of whom charges of considerable defalcation were brought.The case was long and complex; the advocates were long and eloquent; but at last, after weeks of work and rhetoric, the time came for the great judge to give a summing-up; and one of his celebrated masterpieces of lucidity and pulverizing logic was eagerly looked for.He had spoken very little during the prolonged affair, and he looked sad and lowering at the end of it.He was silent for a few moments, and then burst into a stentorian song.His remarks (as reported) were as follows:
"O Rowty-owty tiddly-owty Tiddly-owty tiddly-owty Highty-ighty tiddly-ighty Tiddly-ighty ow."He then retired from public life and took the garret in Lambeth.
I was sitting there one evening, about six o'clock, over a glass of that gorgeous Burgundy which he kept behind a pile of black-letter folios; he was striding about the room, fingering, after a habit of his, one of the great swords in his collection; the red glare of the strong fire struck his square features and his fierce grey hair; his blue eyes were even unusually full of dreams, and he had opened his mouth to speak dreamily, when the door was flung open, and a pale, fiery man, with red hair and a huge furred overcoat, swung himself panting into the room.
"Sorry to bother you, Basil," he gasped."I took a liberty--made an appointment here with a man--a client--in five minutes--I beg your pardon, sir," and he gave me a bow of apology.
Basil smiled at me."You didn't know," he said, "that I had a practical brother.This is Rupert Grant, Esquire, who can and does all there is to be done.Just as I was a failure at one thing, he is a success at everything.I remember him as a journalist, a house-agent, a naturalist, an inventor, a publisher, a schoolmaster, a--what are you now, Rupert?""I am and have been for some time," said Rupert, with some dignity, "a private detective, and there's my client."A loud rap at the door had cut him short, and, on permission being given, the door was thrown sharply open and a stout, dapper man walked swiftly into the room, set his silk hat with a clap on the table, and said, "Good evening, gentlemen," with a stress on the last syllable that somehow marked him out as a martinet, military, literary and social.He had a large head streaked with black and grey, and an abrupt black moustache, which gave him a look of fierceness which was contradicted by his sad sea-blue eyes.
Basil immediately said to me, "Let us come into the next room, Gully," and was moving towards the door, but the stranger said:
"Not at all.Friends remain.Assistance possibly."The moment I heard him speak I remembered who he was, a certain Major Brown I had met years before in Basil's society.I had forgotten altogether the black dandified figure and the large solemn head, but I remembered the peculiar speech, which consisted of only saying about a quarter of each sentence, and that sharply, like the crack of a gun.I do not know, it may have come from giving orders to troops.
Major Brown was a V.C., and an able and distinguished soldier, but he was anything but a warlike person.Like many among the iron men who recovered British India, he was a man with the natural beliefs and tastes of an old maid.In his dress he was dapper and yet demure; in his habits he was precise to the point of the exact adjustment of a tea-cup.One enthusiasm he had, which was of the nature of a religion--the cultivation of pansies.And when he talked about his collection, his blue eyes glittered like a child's at a new toy, the eyes that had remained untroubled when the troops were roaring victory round Roberts at Candahar.
"Well, Major," said Rupert Grant, with a lordly heartiness, flinging himself into a chair, "what is the matter with you?""Yellow pansies.Coal-cellar.P.G.Northover," said the Major, with righteous indignation.
We glanced at each other with inquisitiveness.Basil, who had his eyes shut in his abstracted way, said simply:
"I beg your pardon."
"Fact is.Street, you know, man, pansies.On wall.Death to me.
Something.Preposterous."
