gth to
his misapprehension of the case. Angry interruptions began: these, being
retorted or resented with just indignation, produced an irritation and
ill temper, which, of themselves, were quite sufficient to raise a cloud
of perplexity over any law process, and to obscure it for any
understanding. The commissioner grew warmer and warmer; and, at length,
he had the presumption to say:--'Sir, you are a disgrace to your
profession.' When such sugar-plums, as Captain M'Turk the peacemaker
observes, were flying between them, there could be no room for further
parley. That same night the commissioner was waited on by a friend of
the barrister's, who cleared up his own misconceptions to the
disconcerted judge; placed him, even to his own judgment, thoroughly in
the wrong; and then most courteously troubled him for a reference to
some gentleman, who would arrange the terms of a meeting for the next
day. The commissioner was too just and grave a man to be satisfied with
himself, on a cool review of his own conduct. Here was a quarrel ripened
into a mortal feud, likely enough to terminate in wounds, or, possibly,
in death to one of the parties, which, on his side, carried with it no
palliations from any provocation received, or from wrong and insult, in
any form, sustained: these, in an aggravated shape, could be pleaded by
my friend, but with no opening for retaliatory pleas on the part of the
magistrate. That name, again, of magistrate, increased his offence and
pointed its moral: he, a conservator of the laws--he, a dispenser of
equity, sitting even at the very moment on the judgment seat--_he_ to
have commenced a brawl, nay to have fastened a quarrel upon a man even
then of some consideration and of high promise; a quarrel which finally
tended to this result--shoot or be shot. That commissioner's situation
and state of mind, for the succeeding night, were certainly not
enviable: like Southey's erring painter, who had yielded to the
temptation of the subtle fiend,

With repentance his only companion he lay;
And a dismal companion is she.

Meantime, my friend--what was _his_ condition; and how did _he_ pass the
interval? I have heard him feelingly describe the misery, the blank
anguish of this memorable night. Sometimes it happens that a man's
conscience is wounded; but this very wound is the means, perhaps, by
which his feelings are spared for the present: sometimes his feelings
are lacerated; but this very lacerat