Francis Lynde - The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

Many 's the time you heard me remark that if it was n't for K. I.'s temper, and the violence of his passion, that we 'd be rich and well off this day. Time, they say, cures many an evil; but I 'll tell you one, Molly, that it never improves, and that is a man's wilful nature; on the contrary, they only get more stubborn and cross-grained, and I often think to myself, what a blessed time one of the young creatures must have had of it, married to some patriarch in the Old Testament; and then I reflect on my own condition, – not that Kenny Dodd is like anything in the Bible! And now to tell you, if I 'm able, some of my distresses.

You have heard about poor dear James, and how he was shot; but you don't know that these last six weeks he has never been off his back, with three doctors, and sometimes five-and-thirty leeches on him; and what with the torturing him with new-fashioned instruments, and continued "repletion," as they call it, – if it had n't been for strong wine-gruel that I gave him, at times, "unknownst," – my sure belief is that he would n't have been spared to us. This has been a terrible blow, Molly; but the ways of Providence is unscrupulous, and we must submit.

Here it is, then. James, like every boy, spent a little more money than he had, and knowing well his father's temper, he went to the Jews to help him. They smarted the poor dear child, who, in his innocent heart, knew nothing of the world and its wicked ways. They made him take all kinds of things instead of cash, – Dutch tiles, paving-stones, an altar-piece, and a set of surveying-tools, amongst the rest; and these he had to sell again to raise a trifle of cash. Some of them he disposed of mighty well, – particularly the altar-piece, – but on others he lost a good deal, and, at the end, was a heavy balance in debt. If it had n't been for the duel, however, he says he 'd have no trouble at all in "carrying on," – that's his own word, and I suppose alludes to the business. Be that as it may, his wound was his ruin. Nobody knew how to manage his affairs but himself. It was the very same way with my grandfather, Maurice Lynch McCarthy; for when he died there wasn't a soul left could make anything of his papers. There was large sums in them, – thousands and thousands of pounds mentioned, – but where they were, and what's become of them, we never discovered.

And so with James. There he was, stretched on his bed, while villains and schemers were working his ruin! The business came into the courts here, which, from all I can learn, Molly, are not a bit better than at home with ourselves. Indeed, I believe, wherever one goes, lawyers is just the same for roguery and rampacity. To be sure, it 's comfort to think that you can have another, to the full as bad as the one against you; and if there is any abuse or bad language going, you can give it as hot as you get it; that's equal justice, Molly, and one of the proudest boasts of the British constitution! And you 'd suppose that K. I., sitting on the bench for nigh four-and-twenty years, would know that as well as anybody. Yet what does he do? – you 'll not believe me when I tell you! Instead of paying one of these creatures to go in and torment the others, to pick holes in all he said, and get fellows to swear against them, he must stand out, forsooth, and be his own lawyer! And a blessed business he made of it! A reasonable man would explain to the judges how it all was, – that James was a child; that it was the other day only he was flying a kite on the lawn at home; that he knew as much about wickedness as K. I. did of paradise; that the villains that led him on ought to be publicly whipped! Faith, I can fancy, Molly, it was a beautiful field for any man to display every commotion of the heart; but what does he do? He gets up on his legs, – I did n't see, but I 'm told it, – he gets up on his legs and begins to ballyrag and blackguard all the courts of justice, and the judges, and the attorneys, down to the criers, – he spares nobody! There is nothing too dreadful for him to say, and no words too bad to express it in; till, their patience being all run out, they stop him at last, and give orders to have him taken from the spot, and thrown into a dungeon of the town jail, – a terrible old place, Molly, that goes by the name of the "Petit Carême!" and where they say the diet is only a thin sheet of paper above starving.

And there he is now, Molly; and you may picture to yourself, as the poet says, "what frame he's in"! The news reached me when we were going to the play. I was under the hands of the hairdresser, and I gave such a screech that he jumped back, and burned himself over the mouth with the curling-irons. Even that was a relief to me, Molly; for Mary Anne and myself laughed till we cried again!

I was for keeping the thing all snug and to ourselves about K. I.; but Mary Anne said we should consult Lord George, that was then in the house, and going with us to the theatre. They are a wonderful people, the great English aristocracy; and if it's anything more than another distinguishes them, 't is the indifference to every kind and description of misfortune. I say this, because, the moment Lord George heard the story, he lay down on the sofa, and laughed and roared till I thought he 'd split his sides. His only regret was that he had n't been there, in the courts, to see it all. As for James's share of the trouble, he said it "didn't signify a rush!"

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