Part 20 (1/2)

The following morning (Sunday) ”Hughie” Drummond, one of the ”Forty Thieves” and a champion practical joker, got on to the balcony of the Queen's Hotel, from which he was able to reach the hands of the clock and deliberately altered the time from five minutes to eleven to a quarter past. This, of course scared the people going to church, and resulted in a general stampede.

While sitting next to Lord Houghton at dinner one evening at the Beefsteak Club, I watched him make a lengthy scrutiny of the menu, which made me antic.i.p.ate a wonderful selection to come. He ordered a herring! When the fish came, he regarded it stealthily for some time and then suddenly picking it up by the tail shook it violently (ostensibly to remove the flesh) and while I carefully picked off the bits of herring that covered me, the absent-minded poet ate the fragments that had accidentally lodged upon his plate.

He used to take out his teeth at meal times, and, growing accustomed to remove them, he became occasionally rather mixed in his discretion as to their removal. One day, on meeting a lady of his acquaintance, instead of taking off his hat, as he intended to do, he plucked out his teeth and waved them enthusiastically.

I remember the eccentric lord coming into the club one evening looking tired and hungry. Over the mantelpiece a white paper gleamed. It was a list of the Derby Lottery. Something stirred in his mind which was far away on other subjects bent, and reminded him that he was hungry. He scanned the Lottery list, anxiously rubbing his head as though he were apparently shampooing it. At last he was heard to murmur in dissatisfied tones, ”Waiter, I don't see anything to eat there.”

One couldn't help laughing at his funny ways, but he was a distinguished man after all and very kind.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAW

The Inspiration of the Courts.--Montagu Williams.--Lefroy.-- The De Goncourt case.--Irving.--Sir Frank Lockwood.--Dr.

Lampson, the poisoner.--Mr. Justice Hawkins.--The Tichborne case.--Mr. Justice Mellor and Mr. Justice Lush.--The Druce case.--The Countess of Ossington.--The Duke's portrait.-- My models.--The Adventuress.--The insolent omnibus conductor.

--I win my case.--Sir George Lewis.--The late Lord Grimthorpe.

--Sir Charles Hall.--Lord Halsbury.--Sir Alfred Cripps (now Lord Parmoor).--Sir Herbert Cozens-Hardy.--Lord Robert Cecil.

--The late Sir Albert de Rutzen.--Mr. Charles Gill.--Sir Charles Matthews.--Lord Alverstone.--Mr. Birrell.--Mr. Plowden.

--Mr. Marshall Hall.--Mr. H. C. Biron.

”The reason of the Law is ... the law.”--_Sir Walter Scott._

The Law Courts held more possibilities for me than most ”hunting grounds,” because I invariably found my subject without the difficulty of ”stalking” him, and with the advantage of wig and gown to add to the individuality and relieve the conventionality of his unprofessional habiliments. Another advantage lay in the fact that when a barrister or a judge was conducting a case or presiding on the bench, a host of peculiarities and idiosyncrasies became evident, and I had the satisfaction of observing all unnoticed. In some cases the very fact of being ”on the spot” refreshed my memory, for on one occasion I forgot the features of a certain judge, and felt I must have another glimpse to recall them before I could revive my inspiration. Oddly enough, I recollected him perfectly the moment I set my foot upon the steps of the Law Courts, and, returning to my studio, I completed the drawing.

I found my friend Montague Williams (who perhaps defended more prisoners than any counsel of his day) an inestimable help when I wished to find an especial opportunity of watching any well-known criminal or legal character. Besides being a busy lawyer, he had a considerable personal knowledge of the men with whom, during the discharge of his duties, he had come in contact, and whom he regarded with more sympathy and kindness as to their possible reclamation than many men in his profession. He always found it necessary to believe fully in the innocence of the persons he was defending; and as he was naturally very excitable, he would work himself up to fever pitch, bringing tears to his own eyes as he described with pathos and righteous indignation the overwhelming injustice of the case against his client. His enthusiasm usually impressed the jury immensely. I recollect his saying once in an access of sentimental appeal: ”Think, gentlemen--think of his poor mother!”

The Lefroy case was a curious and very unpleasant affair; probably my readers still remember the strange story of robbery and crime in a railway carriage, and the long and continually iterated innocence of the accused man whom my friend was defending. I went down (as I was curious to see the prisoner) to the Law Courts with Montague Williams one day. Lefroy's physiognomy was in itself almost enough to condemn him in my eyes--for his bad mouth, weak face, and chin that seemed to have altogether retreated, with the abnormal head with a very large back to it, all gave me an impression of latent criminalism. As I returned with my legal friend in the cab I ventured to say as much to him.

”Good Lord, man,” he said. ”Look at yourself in the gla.s.s ... if appearances went for anything you'd have been hanged long ago.”

I had neglected to shave that morning, it is true; but in spite of my omission I felt a trifle overwhelmed by my friend's verdict, much as it amused me.

At the De Goncourt trial (one of my early recollections) I sat next to Irving. I was busily engaged in making a sketch of Benson, who had been brought into the witness box with his latest decoration of broad arrows, and I remember that Irving congratulated me upon my drawing.

On another occasion I watched Frank Lockwood (as he was then) listening to a case as one of the general public, pencil in hand, ready to portray anything that struck him. The case before the court concerned an accident to a pedestrian (a Scotchman) who was summoning a carter or the company he represented, for damages. The carter accused the plaintiff of drunkenness on the occasion of the accident, when he alleged that the man was so drunk that he reeled up against the wheel of his cart. I was amused to see Mr. Lockwood make a quick sketch of a drunken highlander attired in a kilt reeling against a cart wheel, with a glimpse of the Strand in the background, and send it up to the judge.

In the case of Dr. Lampson, the poisoner, I pa.s.sed notes to the prisoner who mistook me for Montague Williams' clerk. Williams had defended the man on a previous occasion, but this time the charge was a grave one, for the accused was said to have visited a young relative (who stood between him and a sum of money), and given him poisoned cake which set up such violent symptoms that suspicion rested upon the doctor. The death of the boy, following shortly after, led to the arrest of Dr. Lampson, who was tried and found guilty.

One of the earliest cases I attended attracted great attention at the time, owing to the sensational evidence which embroiled Lord Ranelagh in a plot with a Mrs. Borradaile. This was due to the clever and unscrupulous plans of a Madame Rachel Leverson, who successfully obtained money in this way, and who was finally convicted of misdemeanour and obtaining money by false pretences. The case made a considerable furore, because during cross-examination the accused appeared to divulge the fact that the aforesaid lord had bribed her to let him look through the keyhole while her client underwent the process of being made beautiful. The whole affair turned out to be a fabrication.

One of my earliest caricatures for _Vanity Fair_ was that of Mr.

Justice Hawkins drawn from memory in 1873. He had the reputation then of being the most good-humoured in the Law Courts and the possessor of the hoa.r.s.est voice of any judge. He once said it was worth 500 a year to him. The last time I saw Lord Brampton (for he became eventually a law Lord) was after the opening of a Parliament, when the peers and peeresses were waiting for their carriages, and there was a tremendous downpour of rain. Standing with his peer's robes wound round and round his body, the famous judge made a most grotesque figure, in tight little trousers with his silk hat slightly on one side, an eyegla.s.s in his eye, and a big umbrella over all. He resembled a resplendent hawk.

The Tichborne case gave Hawkins a chance to excel himself, and he proved to be on the winning side. I sketched most of the princ.i.p.al movers in this game of law, which was played round ”the claimant,”