There was “sensation” in court when Catherine Dyson was called. She stepped into the witness-box, dressed in black, neatly, her jacket trimmed with crape, the somewhat jaunty hat which she had worn at the preliminary examination replaced by a modest bonnet.
She had a veil or “fall” over the upper part of her face, but it was not enough to obscure it. She had a heightened colour, suggestive of rouge, with a slightly sulky expression, and the look of a person who, tensely strung, yet knows what she is about and is resolved to act on the defensive.
She was examined by Mr. Shield, and spoke in a very low tone of voice.
The examination was uneventful; it only repeated the old familiar account of the transactions which led to this trial; and when Mr. Lockwood rose to cross-examine the witness, there was a feeling that now, the preliminary details settled, the real engagement of the day was about to be fought.
The first point on which the opposing forces came into conflict was as to whether or not Mr. Dyson, on the night he was shot, got hold or attempted to get hold of the prisoner.
Before the Coroner and before the magistrate, the witness had professed her inability to say that her husband did not grapple with the prisoner. She now declared positively that he did not, and there was a long struggle on this point.
Mrs. Dyson maintained her composure, during the searching catechising that ensued. Whatever she might have said before, she now said positively that her husband did not get hold of Peace.
Pressed hard for admissions that there was some sort of a struggle between the prisoner and Dyson, the witness adhered to her denial that any thing of the kind did or could take place; and the cross-examination then went on to deal with the photograph taken in the fair.
A good deal of fencing took place as to the precise fair at which this photograph was taken, based partly upon the mistaken assumption that the Peaces went to live at Darnall at the end of 1875, whereas they went there at the beginning of the year.
The witness could not see her way through the puzzle, except that there was some mistake in the dates—which was a very just conclusion at which to arrive.