Juries flinched from the verdict which some bitter-faced judge
enjoined; magistrates swerved from executing the secret orders of
the Home Office; policemen--again--for they are most of them decent
fellows--resigned their positions in the Force, sooner than carry
out the draconian policy of the Home Secretary.
But of course concurrently he lost many a friend and friendship in
the Inns of Court. There were even growls that he should be
disbarred--after this espousal of the Suffrage cause had been made
manifest for three years. He might have been, but that he had other
compeers, below and above his abilities and position; advocates like
Lord Robert Brinsley, the famous son of the Marquis of Wiltshire. If
Williams was to be disbarred, why they would have to take the same
course with a Brinsley who also defended women law-breakers,
fighting for their constitutional rights. And of course such a
procedure as _that_ was unthinkable. Yet where a Brinsley sailed
unhampered, undangered over these troubled waters, poor David often
came near to crashing on the rocks. "To hear the fellow talk," said
one angry K.C. in the Library at the Inner Temple, "you'd think he
was a woman himself!" "Egad" said his brother K.C.--yes, he
really _did_ say "Egad," the oath still lingers in the Inns of
Court--"Egad, he looks like one. No hair on his face and I'll lay he
doesn't shave.
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