"A goodly commencement for a future lawyer!" said the Earl, with a bitter sneer curling his lip. "Of course he has prospered in the world?" "Your lordship's pardon," replied the other, somewhat sharply, "he is no lawyer, nor has aught to do with the law but in following its mandates. He is now a sheriff's officer of the county of Middlesex, but he is not one to scruple at where he exercises his calling. I have heard that he is amassing great wealth by the skill with which he deals with his poor victims; sometimes suffering them to go at large on payment of a weekly sum, sometimes even furnishing them with money when, by putting them in this or that calling, he can ensure to himself cent. per cent. repayment; but never does he suffer any one to slip through his fingers; and if your lordship will permit me, I will mount my horse directly, seek out Master Bolland, and charge him to execute a writ against this Sir Walter." "Do, do," said the Earl; "but yet," he continued, "I fear that all we can do will hardly be in time to prevent this meddling old man--fool I will not call him, for fool he is not--from taking such steps as may embarrass our proceedings." "I do not know, my lord," replied the lawyer; "I do not know; but one thing I can answer for, that if you but trust the matter to me and Bolland, and pay him well for his trouble, Sir Walter Herbert shall be in the county gaol ere the sun goes down to-night." "Indeed!" exclaimed the Earl, "that were quick, indeed. Promise him this night a hundred pounds if he contrive to execute the writ as you mention. Now go; no time must be lost." But as he saw the lawyer rise to obey his directions, a look of doubt and hesitation came over his countenance for a moment. "My poor boy loved the girl," he said, "and therein there is a tie between those Herberts and myself which I feel to be a weakness; and yet it comes upon me even now when I think I am destroying the father of one for whom he felt so tenderly. Stay, Master Attorney, stay. My poor boy loved the girl!" Accursed be all those, doubly accursed, who, when better feelings are coming over our hearts--when the well of sweet waters is gushing up, which is found somewhere in almost every desert--when a touch of human affection is softening the harsh asperity of anger, blunting the sting of hatred, or relaxing the iron grasp of revenge!--accursed be all those, I say, who at such moments come in, and rouse up again within us the evil passions that have been lulled to sleep, and might, perchance, be strangled in their slumber, if some fiendish voice from without did not waken them into fresh activity! The lawyer saw, with pain, the shade of unwonted gentleness that passed over his patron's countenance, for his own mind was made up altogether of the considerations of petty interest, and he foresaw loss in any relaxation of the other's harsh determinations.