from Chapter 1
Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. The
scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated, that no man
alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has
been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes,
without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable
children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married
into it; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have
deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, without
knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the
suit. The little plaintiff or defendant, who was promised a new rocking-horse
when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled, has grown up, possessed himself
of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court
have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has
come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed
into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth
perhaps, since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a
coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary
length before the Court, perennially hopeless.
Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke.
That is the only good that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but
it is a joke in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference
out of it. Every Chancellor was in it, for somebody or other, when he was
counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by blue-nosed,
bulbous-shoed old benchers, in select port-wine committee after dinner in hall.
Articled clerks have been in the habit of fleshing their legal wit upon it. The
last Lord Chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers the
eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the sky rained
potatoes, he observed, or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr.
Blowers; a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and purses.
from Chapter 65
We asked a gentleman by us, if he knew
what cause was on? He told us Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew
what was doing in it? He said, really no he did not, nobody ever did; but as
well as he could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he
said; over for good.
Over for good!
When we heard this unaccountable answer,
we looked at one another quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the
Will had set things right at last, and that Richard and Ada were going to be
rich? It seemed too good to be true. Alas it was!
Our suspense was short; for a break up
soon took place in the crowd, and the people came streaming out looking flushed
and hot, and bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all exceedingly
amused, and were more like people coming out from a Farce or a Juggler than
from a court of Justice. We stood aside, watching for any countenance we knew;
and presently great bundles of papers began to be carried out, bundled in bags,
bundles too large to be got into any bags, immense masses of papers of all
shapes and no shapes, which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the
time being, anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out
more. Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing
Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person who was
standing in the midst of them, whether the cause was over. "Yes," he
said, "it was all up with it at last!" and burst out laughing too.
At this juncture, we perceived Mr. Kenge
coming out of court with an affable dignity upon him, listening to Mr. Vholes,
who was deferential, and carried his own bag. Mr. Vholes was the first to see
us. "Here is Miss Summerson, sir," he said. "And Mr.
Woodcourt."
"0 indeed! Yes. Truly!" said Mr.
Kenge, raising his hat to me with polished politeness. "How do you do?
Glad to see you. Mr. Jarndyce is not here?"
"No. He never came there," I
reminded him.
"Really," returned Mr. Kenge,
"it is as well that he is not here today, for his, shall I say, in my good
friend's absence, his indomitable singularity of opinion might have been
strengthened, perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened."
"Pray what has been done
to-day?" asked Allan.
"I beg your pardon?" said Mr.
Kenge, with excessive urbanity.
"What has been done to-day?"
"What has been done," repeated
Mr. Kenge. "Quite so. Yes. Why, not much has been done; not much. We have
been checked ,brought up suddenly, I would say, upon the, shall I term it
threshold?"
"Is this Will considered a genuine
document, sir?" said Allan; "will you tell us that?"
"Most certainly, if I could,"
said Mr. Kenge; "but we have not gone into that, we have not gone into
that."
"We have not gone into that,"
repeated Mr. Vholes, as if his low inward voice were an echo.
"You are to reflect, Mr.
Woodcourt," observed Mr. Kenge, using his silver trowel, persuasively and
smoothingly, "that this has been a great cause, that this has been a
protracted cause, that this has been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has
been termed, not inaptly, a Monument of Chancery practice."
"And Patience has sat upon it a long
time," said Allan.
"Very well indeed, sir,"
returned Mr. Kenge, with a certain condescending laugh he had. "Very well!
You are further to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," becoming dignified to
severity, "that on the numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly
fictions, and forms of procedure in this great cause, there has been expended
study, ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high intellect.
For many years, the, a, I would say the flower of the Bar, and the, a, I would
presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of the Woolsack, have been lavished
upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the public have the benefit, and if the country
have the adornment, of this great Grasp, it must be paid for, in money or moneyís
worth, sir."
"Mr. Kenge," said Allan,
appearing enlightened all in a moment. "Excuse me, our time presses. Do I
understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?"
"Hem! I believe so," returned
Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do you say?"
"I believe so," said Mr. Vholes.
"And that thus the suit lapses and
melts away?"
"Probably," returned Mr. Kenge.
"Mr. Vholes?"
"Probably," said Mr. Vholes.