Yet there were rumours of borrowed money; rumours of the mansion being about to be let—imagine the loss to the town in the absence of “the family” on the Continent!—rumours of the Squire’s being afraid to face the cost of another and perhaps dubious election; rumours of his having intimated an intention of not appearing again as a candidate unless the party liberally supported him with money.
These rumours had so far an aspect of truth, that the Squire, instead of being in London, was at home while Parliament was sitting. But everyone was confident that Letitia would manage things: “Just the woman for Cornleigh! Capital thing for Cornleigh!”
XI
But some thought it strange that the House of Cornleigh should fear the serfs upon its wide domain—those serfs who had enjoyed for so many centuries its fostering care. Why fear those poor helpless cottagers whose destinies they had swayed so long—whose hearts they had doubtless gained by centuries of kindness?
Oh foolish House of Cornleigh! Foolish Houses of Cornleigh—very much in the plural, for they are a multitude in number—not to have made friends with Flesh and Blood, instead of grasping so blindly only at the mud underneath; neglecting and utterly ignoring the hearts that beat in the homesteads, laying hands so ambitiously on the mere surface of the earth.
Assuredly the Houses of Cornleigh will be swept away when the Browns and Shaws and similar folk can give utterance to their minds in the practical form of the vote under the shelter of Modern Magna Charta.
There is nothing so good as Law; nothing so evil as the Letter of the Law. Sitting alone in his justice-room, or in the midst of the fourteen other magnates at the Petty Sessions, Cornleigh administered the Letter of the Law in its harshest form to the labourers and poor folk who came under the jurisdiction of his tribunal. Most unjust—though strictly legal—were the sentences delivered upon the men who had nominally broken their contracts of service with the tenant farmers.
It was policy—deep statesmanship—on the part of the landowning Petty Sessions in every case to strictly administer the Law in favour of their own tenants. Nor were the tenants themselves blameless in bringing such charges—legally, yet foolishly—against their men, well knowing that the men would not receive equity.
Foolish Houses of Cornleigh, making yourselves infamous for unjust justice.
The wits in Maasbury dubbed the Squire, Mr. Justice Shallow Cornleigh.
The name stuck, but it was unjust to Shakespeare’s Justice Shallow; for it is a remarkable fact that in Shakespeare even the despicable characters have traits of manliness. Even Pistol beat a man.
Justice Shallow had heard the chimes at midnight, had made the acquaintance of the bona robas, had been intoxicated (by inference), had sown wild oats in his youth.
Mr. Justice Shallow Cornleigh had never been man enough to hear the chimes at midnight, nor to sow wild oats. His youth was blameless.
Justice Shallow had corn and beeves—riches gained by his own perseverance and parsimony in his settled middle-age.
Mr. Justice Shallow Cornleigh had indeed land and beeves, but he had them in the same way as the puppy gets the hearthrug—because he was born in the family, not because of any exertions of his own.
Justice Shallow had spirit enough left in his old days to lend Falstaff a thousand pounds to push him at Court.
Mr. Justice Shallow Cornleigh scrupulously bound every volume of “The Sporting Calendar,” but had never made a bet.
Justice Shallow, lean and foolish, had traits of manliness; but of Cornleigh nothing of the sort had ever been recorded. The head of the House of Cornleigh was a nonentity.
This was his fault, his guilt, his crime, in that he did nothing—that he left all things to his steward Robert Godwin, to his Letitia, to the fourteen other magnates whose sentences he pronounced in Petty Sessions.
With his authority he stamped their folly, and became responsible for it. Iniquity was done in his name, and he cast down his eyes and did not see it.
It is a terrible thing when a fool sits in the place of power. Oppression is done without redress.
The system is beyond defence which permits fools to sit in the place of power.
Cornleigh himself was personally guiltless, but he made possible the crimes of others; he signed his name and sanctioned their tyrannies. Yet even in Maasbury, where so much had been done to alienate everyone, there was no animosity against the Squire himself. It was felt that it was not him.
“Just the thing for Cornleigh! Capital thing for Cornleigh! Most energetic woman—just the woman for Cornleigh!”
Whenever an important division was at hand, the Squire ran up to town, patiently sat out the debate, recorded his vote on the right side, and came down home again to his morning cigar in the lane.
His morning cigar in the lane under the oak was Cornleigh’s real life. Cast down upon the sward, his gaze did not appear conscious of the sunshine or the shade, the white clouds drifting over, the squirrels leaping, the blackbirds passing from time to time. But we do not see with our eyes only; we possess a sense which enables us to feel that things are there without actually seeing them. The outward appearance is not always an indication of the inner feelings, any more than the acts by which the world judges are always of our own free will. The inscrutable
