Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/109

 The uproar was terrific. Pembroke could say nothing, could do nothing, but bow. Suddenly an inspiration came to him. He turned to the attorney-general who stood behind him and shook hands with him warmly. The other lawyers crowded around him and shook hands. Somebody made way through the crowd for Bob Henry. The negro on seeing Pembroke broke into loud sobbing, and seizing him in both arms called down blessings on him. Then Colonel Berkeley shouldered his way up to him with Miles. At every minute the enthusiasm of the crowd increased. Pembroke was growing deadly pale. The excitement, the sleeplessness, of the last week was telling on him at last. Colonel Berkeley, after a sharp glance at him, took him by the arm, and by dint of hauling and pulling succeeded in wedging his way with Pembroke through the crowd, which in the hullaballoo and semi-darkness, did not know that the hero of the hour was gone, and yelled fiercely, "Speech! Speech!" The attorney-general gratified them.

Colonel Berkeley hustled Pembroke down, back through the court-room, out of a side door, and through byways to where the Isleham carriage stood, and clapped him in it, jumping in after him.

"Cave will look after Miles," he said, and shouted to Petrarch, who was on the box, "Home." The coachman laid the whip on his horses and they made the five miles to Isleham in half an hour.

When they reached the house, everything was too recent with Pembroke—his final speech, the