He had always been bland in society, but now his courtesy breathed less of artifice,--it took a more hearty tone. Another alteration was discernible in him, and that was precisely the reverse of what might have been expected. He became more thrifty, more attentive to the expenses of life than he had been. Though a despiser of show and ostentation, and far too hard to be luxurious, he was too scientific an architect of the weaknesses of others not to have maintained during his public career an opulent appearance and a hospitable table. The profession he had adopted requires, perhaps, less of externals to aid it than any other; still Brandon had affected to preserve parliamentary as well as legal importance; and though his house was situated in a quarter entirely professional, he had been accustomed to assemble around his hospitable board all who were eminent, in his political party, for rank or for talent. Now, however, when hospitality and a certain largeness of expenses better became his station, he grew closer and more exact in his economy. Brandon never could have degenerated into a miser; money, to one so habitually wise as he was, could never have passed from means into an object; but he had evidently, for some cause or another, formed the resolution to save. Some said it was the result of returning health, and the hope of a prolonged life, to which many objects for which wealth is desirable might occur. But when it was accidentally ascertained that Brandon had been making several inquiries respecting a large estate in the neighbourhood of Warlock, formerly in the possession of his family, the gossips (for Brandon was a man to be gossiped about) were no longer in want of a motive, false or real, for the judge's thrift.
It was shortly after his elevation to the bench, and ere these signs of change had become noticeable, that the same strange ragamuffin whom we have mentioned before, as introduced by Mr. Swoppem to a private conference with Brandon, was admitted to the judge's presence.
"Well," said Brandon, impatiently, the moment the door was closed, "your news?"
"Vy, your 'onor," said the man, bashfully, twirling a thing that stood proxy for a hat, "I thinks as 'ow I shall be hable to satisfy your vorship's 'onor.'! Then, approaching the judge and assuming an important air, he whispered, "'T is as 'ow I thought!"
"My God!" cried Brandon, with vehemence. "And he is alive,--and where?"
"I believes," answered the seemly confidant of Sir William Brandon, "that he be's alive; and if he be's alive, may I flash my ivories in a glass case, if I does not ferret him out; but as to saying vhere he be at this nick o' the moment, smash me if I can!"
"Is he in this country," said Brandon; "or do you believe that he has gone abroad?"
"Vy, much of one and not a little of the other!" said the euphonious confidant.
"How! speak plain, man; what do you mean?"
"Vy, I means, your 'oner, that I can't say vhere he is."
"And this," said Brandon, with a muttered oath,--"this is your boasted news, is it? Dog! damned, damned dog! if you trifle with me or play me false, I will hang you,--by the living God, I will!"
The man shrank back involuntarily from Brandon's vindictive forehead and kindled eyes; but with the cunning peculiar to low vice, answered, though in a humbler tone,--
"And vet good vill that do your 'oner? If so be as how you scrags I, will that put your vorship in the vay of finding he?"
Never was there an obstacle in grammar through which a sturdy truth could not break; and Brandon, after a moody pause, said in a milder voice,--
"I did not mean to frighten you! Never mind what I said; but you can surely guess whereabouts he is, or what means of life he pursues. Perhaps,"--and a momentary paleness crossed Brandon's swarthy visage,-- "perhaps he may have been driven into dishonesty in order to maintain himself!"
The informant replied with great naivete that such a thing was not impossible! And Brandon then entered into a series of seemingly careless but artful cross-questionings, which either the ignorance or the craft of the man enabled him to baffle. After some time Brandon, disappointed and dissatisfied, gave up his professional task; and bestowing on the man many sagacious and minute instructions as well as a very liberal donation, he was forced to dismiss his mysterious visitor, and to content himself with an assured assertion that if the object of his inquiries should not already be gone to the devil, the strange gentleman employed to discover him would certainly, sooner or later, bring him to the judge.
This assertion, and the interview preceding it, certainly inspired Sir William Brandon with a feeling like complacency, although it was mingled with a considerable alloy.
"I do not," thought he, concluding his meditations when he was left alone,--"I do not see what else I can do! Since it appears that the boy had not even a name when he set out alone from his wretched abode, I fear that an advertisement would have but little chance of even designating, much less of finding him, after so long an absence.