Ishmael; Or, In the Depths Part 112

"Oh, yes, thank you."

"I must ask you to be perfectly candid with me; it is necessary."

"Oh, yes, I know it is, and I will be so; for I can trust you, now."

"Tell me, then, as clearly, as fully, and as calmly as you can, the circ.u.mstances of your case."

"I will try to do so," said the woman.

It is useless to repeat her story here. It was only the same old story--of the young girl of fortune marrying a spendthrift, who dissipated her property, estranged her friends, alienated her affections, and then left her penniless, to struggle alone with all the ills of poverty to bring up her three little girls. By her own unaided efforts she had fed, clothed, and educated her three children for the last nine years. And now he had come back and wanted her to live with him again. But she had not only ceased to love him, but began to dread him, lest he should get into debt and make way with the little personal property she had gathered by years of labor, frugality, self-denial.

"He says that he is wealthy, how is that?" questioned Ishmael.

A spasm of pain pa.s.sed over her sensitive face.

"I did not like to tell you, although I promised to be candid with you; but ah! I cannot benefit by his wealth; I could not conscientiously appropriate one dollar; and even if I could do so, I could not trust in its continuance; the money is ill-gotten and evanescent; it is the money of a gambler, who is a prince one hour and a pauper the next."

Then seeing Ishmael shrink back in painful surprise, she added:

"To do him justice, Mr. Worth, that is his only vice; it has ruined my little family; it has brought us to the very verge of beggary; it must not be permitted to do so again; I must defend my little home and little girls, against the spoiler."

"Certainly," said Ishmael, whose time was growing short; "give me pen and ink; I will take down minutes of the statement, and then read it to you, to see if it is correct."

She placed stationery before him on one of the school-desks, and he sat down and went to work.

"You have witnesses to support your statement?" he inquired.

"Oh, yes! scores of them, if wanted."

"Give me the names of the most important and the facts they can swear to."

Mrs. Walsh complied, and he took them down. When he had finished and read over the brief to her, and received her a.s.surance that it was correct, he arose to take his leave.

"But--will not all those witnesses cost a great deal of money? And will not there be other heavy expenses apart from the services of counsel that you are so good as to give me?" inquired the teacher anxiously.

"Not for you," replied Ishmael, in a soothing voice, as he shook hands with her, and, with the promise to see her again at the same hour the next day, took his leave.

He smiled upon the little sisters as he pa.s.sed them in the doorway, and then left the schoolhouse and hurried on towards home.

"Well!" said Judge Merlin, who was waiting for him in the library, "have you decided? Are you counsel for the plaintiff in the great suit of Walsh versus Walsh?"

"No," answered Ishmael, "I am retained for the defendant. I have just had a consultation with my client."

"Great Jove!" exclaimed the judge, in unbounded astonishment. "It was raving madness in you to refuse the plaintiff's brief; but to accept the defendant's--"

"I did not only accept it--I went and asked for it," said Ishmael, smiling.

"Mad! mad! You will lose your first case; and that will throw back your success for years!"

"I hope not, sir. 'Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just,'"

smiled Ishmael.

At the luncheon table that day the judge told the story of Ishmael's quixotism, as he called it, in refusing the brief and the thumping fee of the plaintiff, who had the law all on his side; and whom his counsel would be sure to bring through victoriously; and taking in hand the course of the defendant, who had no money to pay her counsel, no law on her side, and who was bound to be defeated.

"But she has justice and mercy on her side; and it shall go hard but I prove the law on her side, too."

"A forlorn hope, Ishmael, a forlorn hope!" said Mr. Middleton.

"Forlorn hopes are always led by heroes, papa," said Bee.

"And fools!" blurted out Judge Merlin.

Ishmael did not take offense, he knew all that was said was well meant; the judge talked to him with the plainness of a parent; and Ishmael rather enjoyed being affectionately blown up by Claudia's father.

Miss Merlin now looked up, and condescended to say:

"I am very sorry, Ishmael, that you refused the rich client; he might have been the making of you."

"The making of Ishmael. With the blessing of Heaven, he will make himself! I am very glad he refused the oppressor's gold!" exclaimed Bee, before Ishmael could reply.

When Bee ceased to speak, he said:

"I am very sorry, Miss Merlin, to oppose your sentiments in any instance, but in this I could not do otherwise."

"It is simply a question of right or wrong. If the man's cause was bad, Ishmael was right to refuse his brief; if the woman's cause was good, he was right to take her brief," said Mrs. Middleton, as they all arose from the table.

That evening Ishmael found himself by chance alone in the drawing room with Bee.

He was standing before the front window, gazing sadly into vacancy.

The carriage, containing Miss Merlin, Lord Vincent, and Mrs. Middleton as chaperone, had just rolled away from the door. They were going to a dinner party at the President's. And Ishmael was gazing sadly after them, when Bee came up to his side and spoke:

"I am very glad, Ishmael, that you have taken sides with the poor mother; it was well done."

"Thank you, dear Bee! I hope it was well done; I do not regret doing it; but they say that I have ruined my prospects."

"Do not believe it, Ishmael. Have more faith in the triumph of right against overwhelming odds. I like the lines you quoted--' Thrice is he armed who feels his quarrel just!' The poets teach us a great deal, Ishmael. Only to-day I happened to be reading in Scott--in one of his novels, by the way, this was, however--of the deadly encounter in the lists between the Champion of the Wrong, the terrible knight Brian de Bois Guilbert, and the Champion of Right, the gentle knight Ivanhoe.

Do you remember, Ishmael, how Ivanhoe arose from his bed of illness, pale, feeble, reeling, scarcely able to bear the weight of his armor, or to sit his horse, much less encounter such a thunderbolt of war as Bois Guilbert? There seemed not a hope in the world for Ivanhoe. Yet, in the first encounter of the knights, it was the terrible Bois Guilbert that rolled in the dust. Might is not right; but right is might, Ishmael!"

"I know it, dear Bee; thank you, thank you, for making me feel it also!" said Ishmael fervently.

"The alternative presented to you last night and this morning was sent as a trial, Ishmael; such a trial as I think every man must encounter once in his life, as a decisive test of his spirit. Even our Saviour was tempted, offered all the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them, if he would fall down and wors.h.i.+p Satan. But he rebuked the tempter and the Devil fled from him."

"And angels came and ministered to him," said Ishmael, in a voice of ineffable tenderness, as the tears filled his eyes and he approached his arm toward Bee. His impulse was to draw her to his bosom and press a kiss on her brow--as a brother's embrace of a loved sister; but Ishmael's nature was as refined and delicate as it was fervent and earnest; and he abstained from this caress; he said instead:

"You are my guardian angel, Bee. I have felt it long, little sister; you never fail in a crisis!"

"And while I live I never will, Ishmael. You will not need man's help, for you will help yourself, but what woman may do to aid and comfort, that will I do for you, my brother,"