“Mr. Jones,” said the lawyer, “I have thought it my duty to call upon you in respect to these articles in the Carmarthen Herald.”
“I cannot help what the Carmarthen Herald may say.”
“But you can, Mr. Jones. That is just it. There are laws which enable a man to stop libels and to punish them if it be worth his while to do so.” He paused a moment, but Cousin Henry was silent, and he continued, “For many years I was your uncle’s lawyer, as was my father before me. I have never been commissioned by you to regard myself as your lawyer, but as circumstances are at present, I am obliged to occupy the place until you put your business into other hands. In such a position I feel it to be my duty to call upon you in reference to these articles. No doubt they are libellous.”
“They are very cruel; I know that,” said Cousin Henry, whining.
“All such accusations are cruel, if they be false.”
“These are false; damnably false.”
“I take that for granted; and therefore I have come to you to tell you that it is your duty to repudiate with all the strength of your own words the terrible charges which are brought against you.”
“Must I go and be a witness about myself?”
“Yes; it is exactly that. You must go and be a witness about yourself. Who else can tell the truth as to all the matters in question as well as yourself? You should understand, Mr. Jones, that you should not take this step with the view of punishing the newspaper.”
“Why, then?”
“In order that you may show yourself willing to place yourself there to be questioned. ‘Here I am,’ you would say. ‘If there be any point in which you wish me to be examined as to this property and this will, here I am to answer you.’ It is that you may show that you are not afraid of investigation.” But it was exactly this of which Cousin Henry was afraid. “You cannot but be aware of what is going on in Carmarthen.”
“I know about the newspaper.”
“It is my duty not to blink the matter. Everyone, not only in the town but throughout the country, is expressing an opinion that right has not been done.”
“What do they want? I cannot help it if my uncle did not make a will according to their liking.”
“They think that he did make a will according to their liking, and that there has been foul play.”
“Do they accuse me?”
“Practically they do. These articles in the paper are only an echo of the public voice. And that voice is becoming stronger and stronger every day because you take no steps to silence it. Have you seen yesterday’s paper?”
“Yes; I saw it,” said Cousin Henry, gasping for breath.
Then Mr. Apjohn brought a copy of the newspaper out of his pocket, and began to read a list of questions which the editor was supposed to ask the public generally. Each question was an insult, and Cousin Henry, had he dared, would have bade the reader desist, and have turned him out of the room for his insolence in reading them.
“Has Mr. Henry Jones expressed an opinion of his own as to what became of the will which the Messrs Cantor witnessed?”
“Has Mr. Henry Jones consulted any friend, legal or otherwise, as to his tenure of the Llanfeare estate?”
“Has Mr. Henry Jones any friend to whom he can speak in Carmarthenshire?”
“Has Mr. Henry Jones inquired into the cause of his own isolation?”
“Has Mr. Henry Jones any idea why we persecute him in every fresh issue of our newspaper?”
“Has Mr. Henry Jones thought of what may possibly be the end of all this?”
“Has Mr. Henry Jones any thought of prosecuting us for libel?”
“Has Mr. Henry Jones heard of any other case in which an heir has been made so little welcome to his property?”
So the questions went on, an almost endless list, and the lawyer read them one after another, in a low, plain voice, slowly, but with clear accentuation, so that every point intended by the questioner might be understood. Such a martyrdom surely no man was ever doomed to bear before. In every line he was described as a thief. Yet he bore it; and when the lawyer came to an end of the abominable questions, he sat silent, trying to smile. What was he to say?
“Do you mean to put up with that?” asked Mr. Apjohn, with the curve of his eyebrow of which Cousin Henry was so much afraid.
“What am I to do?”
“Do! Do anything rather than sit in silence and bear such injurious insult as that. Were there nothing else to do, I would tear the man’s tongue from his mouth—or at least his pen from his grasp.”
“How am I to find him? I never did do anything of that rough kind.”
“It is not necessary. I only say what a man would do if there were nothing else to be done. But the step to be taken is easy. Instruct me to go before the magistrates at Carmarthen, and indict the paper for libel. That is what you must do.”
There was an imperiousness in the lawyer’s tone which was almost irresistible. Nevertheless Cousin Henry made a faint effort at
