The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I. Lynde Francis
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him be sworn," said the president; and accordingly I held up my hand, while the clerk recited something with a humdrum rapidity that I guessed must mean an oath.
"You are called Dodd père?" said the Attorney-General, addressing me.
"I find I am so called here, but I never was so before," said I, tartly.
"He means that the appellation is not usual in his own country," said one of the judges, – a small, red-eyed man, with pock-marks.
"Put it down," observed the president, gravely. "The witness informs us that he is only called Dodd."
"Kenny James Dodd, Monsieur," cried I, interrupting.
"Dodd – dit Kenny James," dictated the small judge; and the amanuensis took it down.
"And you swear you are the father of Dodd fils?" asked the president.
I suppose that the adage of a wise child knowing his own father cuts both ways; but I answered boldly, that I 'd swear to the best of my belief, – a reservation, however, that excited a discussion of three-quarters of an hour, the point being at last ruled in my favor.
I am bound to say that there was a great deal of legal learning displayed in the controversy, – a vast variety of authorities cited, from King David downwards; and although at one time matters seemed going against me, the red-eyed man turned the balance in my favor, and it was agreed that I was the father of my own son. If I knew but all, it might have been better for me there had been a hitch in the case. But I am anticipating.
There now arose another dispute, on a point of law, I believe, and which was, what degree of responsibility – there were fourteen degrees, it seems, in the Pandects – I stood in as regarded the present suit. From the turn the debate took, I began to suspect we might all of us have to plead to our responsibilities in the other world ere it could be finished; but the red-eyed man, who seemed the shrewdest of them all, cut the matter short by proposing that I should be invited – that's the phrase – to say so much as I pleased in the question before the Court.
"Yes, yes," assented the president. "Let him relate the affair." And the whole bar and the audience seemed to reecho the words.
You know me well, Tom, and you can vouch for it that I never had any objection to telling a story. It was, in truth, a kind of weakness with me, and some used to say that I was getting into the habit of telling the same ones too often. Be that as it may, I never was accused of relating a garbled, broken, and disjointed tale, and for the honor of my anecdotic powers, I resolved not to do so.
"My Lord," said I, "I 'm like the knife-grinder, – I have no story!"
Bad luck to my illustration, it took half an hour to show that my identity was not somehow mixed up with a wheel and a grinding-stone!
"Let him relate the affair," said the president, once more; and this time his voice and manner both proclaimed that his patience was not to be trifled with.
"Relate what?" asked I, tartly.
"All that you know, – anything you have heard," whispered Van, who was trembling for my rashness.
"My Lord," said I, "of myself I know nothing; I was in bed all the time."
"He was in bed all the time," said the president to the others.
"In bed," said red eyes; "let us see;" and he turned over a file of documents before him for several minutes. "Dodd père swears that he was in bed from the 7th of February, which is the first entry here, to the 19th of May, inclusive."
"I swear no such thing, my Lord," cried I.
"What does he swear, then?" asked the small judge.
"Let us hear his own version; tell us unreservedly all that you know," said the president, who really spoke as if he compassionated my embarrassment.
"My Lord," said I, "there is nothing would give me more pleasure than to display the candor you require; but when I assure you that I actually know nothing – "
"Know nothing, sir!" interposed the president. "Do you mean to tell this Court that you are, and were, in total ignorance of every part of your son's conduct, – that you never heard of his difficulties, nor of his efforts to meet them?"
"If hearsay be sufficient, then," said I, "you shall have it;" and so, taking a long breath, for I saw a weary road before me, I began thus, the amanuensis occasionally begging of me a slight halt to keep up: —
"It was about five or six weeks ago, my Lord, we – that is, Mrs. D., the girls, James, and myself – made an excursion to the field of Waterloo, filled by the very natural desire to see a spot so intimately associated with our country's glory. I will not weary you with any detail of disappointment, nor deplore the total absence of everything that could revive recollections of that great day. In fact, except the big lion with his tail between his legs, there is nothing symbolic of the nations engaged."
I waited a moment here, Tom, to see how they took this; but they never winced, and so I perceived my shell exploded harmlessly.
"We prowled about, my Lord, for two or three hours, and at last reached Hougoumont, in time to take shelter against a tremendous storm which just then broke over us; and there it was that James accidentally came in contact with the young gentleman whom I may not wrongfully call the cause of all our misfortunes. It would appear that they began discussing the battle, with all the natural prejudices of the two conflicting sides. I will not affirm that James was very well read on the subject; indeed, my impression is that his stock of information was principally derived from a representation he had witnessed by an equestrian troop at home, and where Bony, after galloping twice round the circus, throws himself on his knees and begs for mercy, – a fact so strongly impressed upon his memory that he insisted the Frenchman should receive it as historical. The dispute, it would seem, was not conducted within the legitimate limits of debate; they waxed angry, and the Frenchman, after a fierce provocation, set off into the thickest of the storm rather than endure the further discussion."
"This seems to me, sir," interposed the president, "to be perfectly irrelevant to the matter before us. The Court accords the very widest latitude to explanations, but if they really have no bearing on the case in hand, – if, as it appears to my learned brethren and myself, this polemic on a battle has no actual connection with your son's difficulties – "
"It's the very source and origin of them, my Lord," broke I in. "He has no embarrassment which does not date from that incident and that hour."
"In that case you may proceed, sir," said he, blandly; and I went on.
"I do not mean to say, my Lord, that all that followed was inevitable; nor that, with cooler heads and calmer tempers, the whole affair could not have been arranged; but James is hot, mighty hot, – the Celt is strong in him. He really likes a 'shindy,' not like some chaps for the notoriety of it, – not because it gets into the newspapers, and makes a noise, – but he likes it for itself, and for its own intrinsic merits, as one might say. And I may remark here, my Lord, that the Irishman is, perhaps, the only man in Europe that understands fighting in this sense; and this trait, if rightly considered, will give a strong clew to our national character, and will explain the general failure of all our attempts at revolution. We take so much diversion in a row that we quite forget it's only the means to an end. We have, so to say, so much fun on the road that we lose sight of the place we were going to.
"I don't know, Tom, how much further I might have gone on in my analytical researches into our national character; but the interpreter cut me short, by assuring the Court that he was totally unable to follow me. In the narrative parts of my discourse he was good enough; but it seemed that my reflections, and my general remarks on men and manners, were a cut above him. I was therefore warned to 'try back' to the line of my story, which I did accordingly.
"As for the affair itself, my Lord," resumed I, "I understand from eyewitnesses that it was most respectably and discreetly conducted. James was put up with his face to the west, so that Roger had the sun on him. The tools were beauties. It was a fine May morning, mellow, and not too bright. There was nothing wanting to make the scene impressive, and, I may add, instructive. Roger's friend gave the word – one, two, three – bang