Part 15

I have referred to the duties of the Junior of the circuit as being somewhat anomalous, because although, as his title would imply, he is always chosen from the newest of its recruits, tradition dowers him with a figment of authority which is altogether out of proportion to any personal qualifications he may chance to possess. He disputes the leadership of the circuit with the leader himself, and is assumed to hold specially in his keeping the interests of the Junior Bar as opposed to whatever arrogant claims may be put forward by the more fortunate wearers of the silken gown. To this defiant attitude, where the opportunity for defiance was in any sense possible, I was constantly urged by the members of the Junior Bar, whose cause I was supposed to champion; and it was deemed a duty, which no Junior of spirit could safely ignore, that on any public occasion when he had to stand up as spokesman of the circuit, he should depreciate, with all the resources at his disposal, both the intellectual prowess and the professional bearing of the eminent Queen’s counsel who were assembled at assize. The dignity thus assigned to him was, of course, only half-humorously entertained by his comrades of both ranks, but so much of reality still attached to the office that the holder of it, if he chose to take advantage of the situation, found ample opportunity for the trial and exercise of such gifts of oratory as he might be fortunate enough to possess. Wherever and whenever the members of the circuit were entertained, the Junior had to brace himself to his allotted task; and although at the time I had been assigned no opportunity of airing my powers of speech in open court, these festive gatherings, which occurred in nearly every separate county we visited, left me free for the crude practice of an art that had always profoundly attracted me.

The leaders of the Northern circuit, whose virtues I was called upon to assail, numbered at that time some of the most distinguished representatives at the Bar. Herschell, Russell, Holker, and Sam Pope had all either attained or were nearing the zenith of their fame; while among the Junior Bar it may suffice to cite the names of the late Lord Selby (then Mr. Gully), Mr. Henn Collins (the late Master of the Rolls), Lord Mersey, and Mr. Justice Kennedy. It was a privilege to watch the work in court in which the powers of some of these giants of the profession were daily called into exercise. I used to hear some of my contemporaries sigh over the weary ordeal of having to sit and listen to cases in which they were not concerned; a little later, in the courts at Westminster, I sometimes shared that feeling of fatigue; but my experience of two years of circuit life yields few dull memories. The proceedings on circuit are perhaps more concentrated in their interest than can, in the nature of things, be claimed for the more scattered and diversified arena of the metropolis; one is brought more nearly into touch with the chief actors in the drama, and the incidents of the day are renewed and discussed at the Bar mess in the evening. It is possible there to gauge and to measure the social qualities of the men whose public performances in court are still under consideration, and to link the more human side of this or that great advocate, as it was frankly and freely exhibited in those hours when we sat at wine after dinner, with the purely intellectual gifts that had been set in action during the day. No one, for instance, who knew Mr. Russell (afterwards Lord Russell of Killowen) only by his conduct of a case in court, where the qualities of an imperious temper joined to an unrelenting gravity of manner coloured and dominated the impression which even his most eloquent speeches produced, could have readily divined that he possessed at the same time a vein of genuine sentiment that, in his more sympathetic moods, showed itself as being no less clearly an integral part of his nature. And yet this softer side of his character was often shown at the circuit mess, and I have more than once seen his eyes moistened with tears as he would sing, without any great pretence of art, one or more of Moore’s sentimental Irish melodies.

Nor could it have been readily guessed that, beneath the look of slumbering power which marked Holker’s personality, there lurked a quickened sense of humour of which he could make agile display when the needs of the social occasion called it into being. The almost daily contest between these two men, so differently equipped, and yet often so equally matched, formed one of the most interesting subjects of study to the youngster whose idle days were passed in court; for down the length of the circuit, from Durham to Liverpool, there were few causes of any magnitude or importance in which they were not both engaged, and their divergent personalities and varying methods remain to me now as an unfading recollection. It was sometimes difficult to realise that Holker owned any real claims to eloquence until the cumulative effect of his untiring insistence found its reflex in the favourable verdict of the jury. That, at any rate, was the first impression.

It was only afterwards that the student was able to realise what a wealth of intellectual resource and unsleeping vigilance lay masked beneath the somewhat uncouth exterior in which the immobile and unresponsive features gave scarcely a hint of the quick insight into human nature, and the swift grasp of what was essential either in the strength or the weakness of his cause. Grace of oratory he certainly could never boast, but his very disability in this respect seemed sometimes to serve him as a source of power. His humble and deprecating manner, as though he were struggling with a task too great for him, made an irresistible appeal to the sympathies of a Northern jury, who would seem silently bidden to come to the aid of this giant in distress, and who were never, I think, aware that in leaning towards what they deemed the weaker side, they were, in fact, the victims of the most consummate art which cloaked itself in almost blundering simplicity of phrase. Russell’s more brilliant gifts as an orator often beat in vain against what seemed at first sight to be the ill-adjusted and cumbrous methods of his adversary; while at other times the superior grace and vehemence of his style carried him safely to victory. Even at that date it seemed to me clear that he was destined to take his place as the most distinguished advocate at the Bar, and those who had the privilege of watching his career at that time had not long to wait to witness the fulfilment of their prophecy. I think of him always as an advocate, for although his natural gift of speech might have fitted him to win renown in almost any arena, it may nevertheless be justly said of him that it was the office of advocacy alone which furnished the needed impulse for the display of his highest gifts as an orator. It is possibly for that reason that his career in Parliament never quite justified his commanding reputation at the Bar, and it is certainly true--as I myself have witnessed more than once--that in the discharge of those lighter duties that fall to a speaker on festal occasions he moved with little ease of style and with far inferior effect.

It was the concrete issue, carrying with it a full sense of responsibility, that was needed to set in motion the great forces of character and intellect that were his by right. It was the sense of the duel that pricked him forward to the display of his powers at their best; and it is, I think, this same sense of the duel that forms the supreme element of interest to those who are called upon to watch the conduct of a great trial in which grave issues are at stake. To the trained mind of the lawyer an intricate case, in which only civil interests are involved, provides perhaps the fullest opportunity for watching the expert sword-play between two leaders who are fitly armed for their task; but from the more human and dramatic point of view it is the criminal court in an assize town that more often attracts the presence of the younger student. A murder trial, where the man whose life is in the balance stands before you in the dock during the long hours of a protracted hearing, becomes, as the case advances, absorbing, and even oppressive, in its interest. The very air of the crowded court seems charged with the message of this one human story; it is difficult, as the sordid and pitiable facts are gradually revealed, to conceive that there is any other drama than that which is being enacted within those four walls. And as the trial drags its course, with each new link in the evidence seeming to forge a chain that is gradually drawing closer around the wretched being who stands before you in the dock, the intensity of the situation becomes so great and so strained that one is almost tempted to believe that the whole world is awaiting that one word from the lips of the jury which shall set him free once more or send him to his doom.

I can recall many such trials during my brief service on the Northern circuit, and sometimes when the hearing outran the hours commonly allotted for the sittings of the court, and when judge and jury, by mutual consent, had agreed that the end should be reached before the end of the day, the inherent solemnity of the scene would receive an added sense of awe and terror as the fading daylight gradually deserted the building, and the creeping shadows half-shrouded the faces of the spectators eagerly and silently intent upon every word that fell from the judge in his summing-up--whose grave countenance, only partly illumined by the candles that had been set upon his desk, stood in dreadful contrast with that of the prisoner who confronted him with ashen face like that of a spectre in the darkness. And once I remember, when the fatal verdict had been given, and the judge had passed to the dread task of pronouncing sentence--a task never in my experience discharged without the signs of visible emotion--the terror of the scene was still further heightened as the prisoner, shrieking for mercy, held fast to the bar of the dock, and was only at last removed by force to the cells below.

Such memories count among the sadder experiences of circuit life, and were relieved by much else in the ordinary work of the day that leaves a happier recollection. I believe the circuit mess has now greatly fallen from its former estate; in my time it flourished exceedingly. At each of the great towns we kept a well-stocked cellar of our own, and it was the business of the junior to see that the members dining were kept well supplied with the wine of their choice. The increase of the Local Bar in many of the great centres has no doubt considerably changed all this--with some loss, as it must be, of the sense of good-fellowship which then bound us together. But at that time those nightly gatherings, at which nearly every member of the circuit dined, kept alive a kind of schoolboy feeling that infected the graver leaders no less than the Junior Bar. The dinner-hour brought with it always something of a festal spirit, and there were special occasions, such as grand nights, that were wholly given over to a frolic mood. We had our accredited Poet Laureate, poor Hugh Shield, who has now joined the majority, and whose duty it was to provide the fitting doggerel to be recited at the mess. Nor were these effusions too strictly judged, from a purely literary point of view, if they were sufficiently besprinkled with pungent personal references to such members as were deemed to afford fitting material for the exercise of the poet’s humour. Another of those who was a prodigal contributor to the humours of the evening was M‘Connell, who afterwards became judge of the Middlesex Sessions. And even the leader was not allowed to escape his contribution, although it was sometimes hinted that his lighter essays in prose and verse were supplied to him by some one of his friends whose professional services were not so fully employed.

Though the barrister’s calling did not long hold me in its service, I have always retained the keenest interest in the triumphs of its distinguished representatives. Perhaps of no other profession can it be so truly said that it is fitted to claim the undivided allegiance of the strongest character and the keenest intellect; possibly, for that reason it leaves the most indelible mark upon its followers. A great lawyer, in whatever arena he may be encountered, never quite divests himself of the habit of the law; just as there are some men who, by a natural academic inclination, remain always and obviously members of their University, no matter how far removed may be the ultimate field of their activity. But if a lawyer is always a lawyer, it is perhaps for that very reason that he is often such excellent company, and this, I think, applies especially to members of the Common Law Bar, who do not incur the same danger of becoming enmeshed in the enclosing net of legal subtleties. With them the study and knowledge of character becomes often a greater element of strength, than a profound knowledge of legal principles.

BY THE SIDE OF A STREAM

If a writer happens to be an angler, he will often find himself when in holiday mood on the banks of a trout stream. There is long warrant for the association of these two callings. Since the day of Izaak Walton, whom we still follow with such delight in his rambles beside the Dove or the Lea, the hand whose chief office it is to hold the pen has again and again, in hours of leisure, been found wielding the rod. We have modern examples in Charles Kingsley, whose “Chalk Stream Studies” may perhaps outlast many of his more ambitious essays in literature; and Mr. Froude has left among his miscellaneous writings a delightful record of a day’s fishing on a Hertfordshire stream. William Black, the novelist, never tired of recounting to me his various adventures in northern waters; and among modern writers, Mr. Andrew Lang may also be cited as an unwearying follower of the gentle art. I think, indeed, the alliance I have noted has in it something more than the accident of individual taste. There is no need for the long leisure of a set holiday to enable the man of letters to turn to his favourite recreation. The more violent forms of sport, which exact the devotion of a day, or of a series of days, require the enforced cessation of all forms of literary toil; but if the angler is fortunately located, work and play are by no means inconsistent and--granted that he is strong enough to resist during the earlier hours of the day the alluring call of the gentle south-west breeze with its alternating changes of sun and cloud--the morning may still hold him chained to his desk, sure of the reward of his industry in the evening ramble by the stream. And if his success as an angler be not too complete--and how often it is not!--the subject of his morning task will often renew itself in the happy solitude that counts among the many joys which angling can boast.

My own apprenticeship as a fisherman was passed among the Cumberland hills. Earlier experience had taken me no further than an occasional day on the upper reaches of the Thames, but even this cockney form of the sport in its annual recurrence was looked forward to with delight; and though the reward was no more than a few gudgeon, with a rare and occasional perch, such puny triumphs already whetted my appetite for the day when I should be admitted to the deeper mysteries of the fly-fisher’s art. My first master in this higher branch of the profession was no hero save to me. He was a gentleman of unsettled occupation, who dwelt in a cottage close beside Grasmere Churchyard, where Wordsworth lies buried; and by the more orderly characters of the village his wayward habits of life, involving constantly recurring lapses into inebriety, were regarded with stern reprobation. But for me, at the time, any doubt of the moral integrity of his character was silenced by the indisputable fact that he was an unrivalled professor of his art. I accepted him without misgiving as my comrade and my master, and this at least may be urged in mitigation of the harsher judgment of the village, that the night’s debauch, of which I was myself too often the reluctant witness, never hindered him from appearing under our cottage window as soon after dawn as I was prepared to set out on our daily expedition. His stock-in-trade as a fisherman was of the homeliest and scantiest description. His rod, consisting of two parts rudely spliced together, had been fashioned by himself; and by the side of the beck or the mountain tarn, with fingers that alcohol still left incomparably steady for their task, he would forge, with such rough process of imitation as he could command, the fly that he thought best suited for the conditions of the water or the day. In his company my brother and I rambled far afield. There was no upland stream or lonely pool within a circuit of five miles where our untried skill was not assiduously exercised. At that time the lakes and rivers of Cumberland were not so unceasingly flogged by the summer visitor, and there were sequestered haunts well known to him that were scarcely visited by the tourist at all.

One specially favoured spot was a tiny lake called Harrop Tarn, surrounded by a quaking bog, that lay in the hills above Thirlmere. My revered master, though a genuine sportsman, was not wholly irreproachable in regard to some delicate questions that lay on the border-land of poaching, and it was at Harrop, where the bank was in most places unapproachable, that he initiated us in the subtle mysteries of cross-lining. Be it counted to his honour, however, that these occasional departures from the stricter etiquette of his calling were never undertaken without enjoining on us the most solemn pledge of secrecy, a fact that at the time gave to the delights of almost certain success the added excitement of some unknown personal risk and danger.

But the Lake district, it must be confessed, was even then no paradise for the trout-fisher. It satisfied well enough the moderate ambition of a boy, who was still a bungler in the art, and it served, at any rate, as fitting ground for that patient apprenticeship which is necessary to all who desire to become proficient in the science and practice of casting a fly. Scotland, a few years later, offered a wider field, with the occasional chance of larger triumphs; and it was there that I first became conscious of my ability to meet my desired prey upon more equal terms. The upper reaches of the Tay, as it runs between Crianlarich and Killin, became for many years my favourite hunting-ground. The little inn at Luib was our resting-place, and Loch Dochart, which lay five miles up the stream, our favourite resort when wind and weather served. I can recall no sense of fatigue from the ten miles of mountain road that we had to trudge by the time our day’s work was done, though we were often drenched to the skin before we reached the inn at night. Nor did the inn itself, at that time, offer absolute protection against the weather, and sometimes when the storm beat heavily upon the uncertain roof we had to make our way upstairs to our rooms under the shelter of an umbrella.

Some years later I found my way to the Western Highlands as the invited guest of a dear friend who was almost as keen a fisherman as myself. I had often heard of the _Salmo ferox_, whose identity as a separate species is, I believe, still in dispute, but it was not until one memorable day upon Loch Awe that I encountered the monster in person. A fair morning had changed suddenly to a wild storm of wind and rain, and the surface of the lake was lashed into the semblance of a mimic sea. Fly-fishing was out of the question, and our gillie in despair suggested that we might put out the trolling rod with a large phantom minnow for bait, while we tried to make our way against the wind back to the landing-place. I do not think there was any expectation even on his part that the endeavour would yield any result, and I, who held the rod in hands that were nearly frozen by the beating rain, was entirely unprepared for the violent and sudden tug that nearly wrenched it from my grasp. But when that tug came, no one thought any more about the storm, and for nearly half an hour of throbbing excitement we were engaged in a fierce struggle that seemed at any moment likely to end in our ignominious defeat. Again and again the great trout rose to the surface and sprang high into the air, and then, with sudden change of tactics, it would dive, as it would seem, to the floor of the lake, and lie in sullen resistance to such pressure as we dared put upon the line. But the victory long delayed was ours at last, not, however, I will admit, without some element of disappointment in the appearance and quality of our captive. A long, lank fish, that scaled something between 8 lb. and 9 lb., but which, if it had been in condition, ought to have mounted to as much as half its weight again: an ugly fish, with the mouth and jaws of a pike, it still left us in wonder where it had found the force to offer so stubborn a resistance.

An occasional monster during a day which seems to offer the prospect of only smaller fry is one of the pleasurable excitements of loch-fishing in Scotland. Only a few years ago I set out in pleasant company from a cottage beside the shores of Mull, to make a picnic near one of the little lochs that lay about five miles up the hill. Two or three of us had taken our rods, but with no thought of a larger capture than the small brown trout and Fontinalis with which we knew these hill lochs were well stocked. The day was busily spent, and most of the party had already started homeward on the downward path, when the gillie who was with us said that he knew of another little loch about a mile over the hill, where rumour had it that there were certain larger trout which had never been induced to rise to the fly. My host and I, with one other companion, determined to make trial of this unconquered pool, and set out across the heather just as the sun was beginning to dip behind the shelter of the hill. It had been a scorching day, and was a lovely evening. As we came in sight of the little loch it seemed to us both that if these reluctant fish were ever to be lured to the net, the present was the most propitious occasion for the adventure.