He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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He had never made a guinea by his work as a barrister, and was
beginning to doubt of himself whether he ever would do so. Not, as
he knew well, that guineas are generally made with ease by barristers
of four years’ standing, but because, as he said to his friends, he
did not see his way to the knack of it. He did not know an attorney
in the world, and could not conceive how any attorney should ever
be induced to apply to him for legal aid. He had done his work
of learning his trade about as well as other young men, but had
had no means of distinguishing himself within his reach. He went
the Western Circuit because his aunt, old Miss Stanbury, lived at
Exeter, but, as he declared of himself, had he had another aunt living
at York, he would have had nothing whatsoever to guide him in his
choice. He sat idle in the courts, and hated himself for so sitting.
So it had been with him for two years without any consolation or
additional burden from other employment than that of his profession.
After that, by some chance, he had become acquainted with the editor
of the Daily Record, and by degrees had taken to the writing of
articles. He had been told by all his friends, and especially by
Trevelyan, that if he did this, he might as well sell his gown and
wig. He declared, in reply, that he had no objection to sell his
gown and wig. He did not see how he should ever make more money out
of them than he would do by such sale. But for the articles which
he wrote, he received instant payment, a process which he found to
be most consolatory, most comfortable, and, as he said to Trevelyan,
as warm to him as a blanket in winter.
Trevelyan, who was a year younger than Stanbury, had taken upon
himself to be very angry. He professed that he did not think much
of the trade of a journalist, and told Stanbury that he was sinking
from the highest to almost the lowest business by which an educated
man and a gentleman could earn his bread. Stanbury had simply replied
that he saw some bread on the one side, but none on the other; and
that bread from some side was indispensable to him. Then there had
come to be that famous war between Great Britain and the republic
of Patagonia, and Hugh Stanbury had been sent out as a special
correspondent by the editor and proprietor of the Daily Record.
His letters had been much read, and had called up a great deal of
newspaper pugnacity. He had made important statements which had
been flatly denied, and found to be utterly false; which again had
been warmly reasserted and proved to be most remarkably true to
the letter. In this way the correspondence, and he as its author,
became so much talked about that, on his return to England, he did
actually sell his gown and, wig and declare to his friends and to
Trevelyan among the number that he intended to look to journalism
for his future career.
He had been often at the house in Curzon Street in the
earliest happy days of his friend’s marriage, and had thus become
acquainted—intimately acquainted—with Nora Rowley. And now again,
since his return from Patagonia, that acquaintance had been renewed.
Quite lately, since the actual sale of that wig and gown had been
effected, he had not been there so frequently as before, because
Trevelyan had expressed his indignation almost too openly.
‘That such a man as you should be so faint-hearted,’ Trevelyan had
said, ‘is a thing that I can not understand.’
‘Is a man faint-hearted when he finds it improbable that he shall
be able to leap his horse over a house.’
‘What you had to do, had been done by hundreds before you.’
‘What I had to do has never yet been done by any man,’ replied
Stanbury. ‘I had to live upon nothing till the lucky hour should
strike.’
‘I think you have been cowardly,’ said Trevelyan.
Even this had made no quarrel between the two men; but Stanbury had
expressed himself annoyed by his friend’s language, and partly on
that account, and partly perhaps on another, had stayed away from
Curzon Street. As Nora Rowley had made comparisons about him, so
had he made comparisons about her. He had owned to himself that had
it been possible that he should marry, he would willingly entrust
his happiness to Miss Rowley. And he had thought once or twice
that Trevelyan had wished that such an arrangement might be made
at some future day. Trevelyan had always been much more sanguine
in expecting success for his friend at the Bar than Stanbury had
been for himself. It might well be that such a man as Trevelyan
might think that a clever rising barrister would be an excellent
husband for his sister-in-law, but that a man who earned a precarious
living as a writer for a penny paper would be by no means so
desirable a connection. Stanbury, as he thought of this, declared
to himself that he would not care two straws for Trevelyan in the
matter, if he could see his way without other impediments. But the
other impediments were there in such strength and numbers as to
make him feel that it could not have been intended by Fate that he
should take to himself a wife. Although those letters of his to
the Daily Record had been so pre-eminently successful, he had never
yet been able to earn by writing above twenty-five or thirty pounds
a month. If that might be continued to him he could live upon it
himself; but, even with his moderate views, it would not suffice
for himself and family.
He had told Trevelyan that while living as an expectant barrister
he had no means of subsistence. In this, as Trevelyan knew, he was
not strictly correct. There was an allowance of 100 pounds a year
coming to him from the aunt whose residence at Exeter had induced
him to devote himself to the Western Circuit. His father had been
a clergyman with a small living in Devonshire, and had now been dead
some fifteen years. His mother and two sisters were still living
in a small cottage in his late father’s parish, on the interest of
the money arising from a life insurance. Some pittance from sixty
to seventy pounds a year was all they had among them. But there was
a rich aunt, Miss Stanbury, to whom had come considerable wealth in
a manner most romantic—the little tale shall be told before this
larger tale is completed—and this aunt had undertaken to educate
and place out in the world her nephew Hugh. So Hugh had been sent
to Harrow, and then to Oxford, where he had much displeased his
aunt by not accomplishing great things, and then had been set down
to make his fortune as a barrister in London, with an allowance
of 100 pounds a year, his aunt having paid, moreover, certain fees
for entrance, tuition, and the like. The very hour in which Miss
Stanbury learned that her nephew was writing for a penny newspaper
she sent off a dispatch to tell him that he must give up her or
the penny paper. He replied by saying that he felt himself called
upon to earn his bread in the only line from which, as it seemed to
him, bread would be forthcoming. By return of post he got another
letter to say that he might draw for the quarter then becoming due,
but that that would be the last. And it was the last.
Stanbury made an ineffectual effort to induce his aunt to make over
the allowance or at least a part of it to his mother and sisters,
but the old lady paid no attention whatever to the request. She
never had given, and at that moment did not intend to give, a shilling
to the widow and daughters of her brother. Nor did she intend, or
had she ever intended, to leave a shilling of her money to Hugh
Stanbury, as she had very often told him. The money was, at her
death, to go back to the people from whom it had come to her.
When Nora Rowley made those comparisons between Mr Hugh Stanbury and
Mr Charles Glascock, they were always wound up very much in favour
of the briefless barrister. It was not that he was the handsomer
man, for he was by no means handsome, nor was he the bigger man,
for Mr Glascock was six feet tall; nor was he better dressed, for
Stanbury was untidy rather than otherwise in his outward person.
Nor had he any air of fashion or special grace to recommend him,
for he was undoubtedly an awkward-mannered man. But there was a
glance of sunshine in his eye, and a sweetness in the curl of his
mouth when he smiled, which made Nora feel that it would have been
all up with her had she not made so very strong a law for her own
guidance. Stanbury was a man about five feet ten, with shoulders
more than broad in proportion, stout limbed, rather awkward of his
gait, with large feet and hands, with soft wavy light hair, with
light grey eyes, with a broad, but by no means ugly, nose. His
mouth and lips were large, and he rarely showed his teeth. He wore
no other beard than whiskers, which he was apt to cut away through
heaviness of his hand in shaving, till Nora longed to bid him be more
careful. ‘He doesn’t care what sort of a guy he makes of himself,
she once said to her sister, almost angrily. ‘He is a plain man,
and he knows it,’ Emily had replied. Mr Trevelyan was doubtless a
handsome man, and it was almost on Nora’s tongue to say something
ill-natured on the subject. Hugh Stanbury was reputed to be somewhat
hot in spirit and manner. He would be very sage in argument, pounding
down his ideas on politics, religion, or social life with his fist
as well as his voice. He was quick, perhaps, at making antipathies,
and quick, too, in making friendships; impressionable, demonstrative,
eager, rapid in his movements sometimes to the great detriment of
his shins and knuckles; and he possessed the sweetest temper that
was ever given to a man for the blessing of a woman. This was the
man between whom and Mr Glascock Nora Rowley found it to be impossible
not to make comparisons.
On the very day after Lady Milborough’s dinner party Stanbury
overtook Trevelyan in the street, and asked his friend where he was
going eastward. Trevelyan was on his way to call upon his lawyer,
and said so. But he did not say why he was going to his lawyer.
He had sent to his wife by Nora that morning to know whether she
would make to him the promise he required. The only answer which
Nora could draw from her sister was a counter question, demanding
whether he would ask her pardon for the injury he had done her.
Nora had been most eager, most anxious, most conciliatory as a
messenger; but no good had come of these messages, and Trevelyan
had gone forth to tell all his trouble to his family lawyer. Old
Mr Bideawhile had been his father’s ancient and esteemed friend,
and he could tell things to Mr Bideawhile which he could not bring
himself to tell to any other living man; and he could generally
condescend to accept Mr Bideawhile’s advice, knowing that his father
before him had been guided by the
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