"Yes," said the Jew; "Mrs. Cook and everybody in the house were in the room, and saw how poor dear Mr. Catspaw shook his head when I was brought in. He did nothing but shake his head while I was in the room."
"Call the cook!" said Mr. Skinner, recollecting her extraordinary and energetic behaviour on his arrival.
"It's a great pity," protested the cook, "that your worship should fatigue yourself with the gibberish of that woman, who is as blind as a bat in the matter. It was the Jew, and nobody but the Jew, that committed the murder."
"I know all that," said the justice, with dignity; "but it's necessary to observe certain forms." And again he desired the haiduk to call the cook.
Catharine Cismeasz, or Mrs. Kata, as she was usually called, (for who, as she often and justly remarked, will give a poor widow her due? and even her Christian name is shortened, as if she were a mere kitchen-maid),—Mrs. Kata, I say, had meanwhile addressed her own partizans, to whom she complained of the stupidity of the judge, who would not condescend to listen to a reasonable woman. "I am sure," said she, "that fellow, the cook, will lead him astray; he's a treacherous knave, so he is, and he's always getting my lady out of temper with everybody; and I'm sure, sirs, he'll say it was the Jew, and yet he's as innocent as an unborn babe, for when they took him to Mr. Catspaw's bed, he——"
Here she was interrupted by a haiduk, who informed her that she was wanted; whereupon her complaint was suddenly changed into high praise and admiration of the justice, who, she said, was a proper man indeed.
After Mrs. Cizmeasz had spent a short time in dressing her head and making herself spruce before a piece of glass which hung at the window, she set off, with great consequence, to see the justice; declaring, at the same time, that the truth should and would now be known.
She had never been in a court of justice. When Mr. Skinner asked her what her name and occupation were, two things she thought the whole world knew, she became much embarrassed; and when the judge inquired her age, the cook could not refrain from tittering. "Forty-two," said she, in so low a voice that it could scarcely be heard. And when the justice warned her, in a very solemn manner, to speak the truth, for that what she was about to say would all be taken down, and that, if she deviated from the truth, a severe punishment would be inflicted upon her, she was induced to believe that the whole was planned and got up by the cook to pique her. In order, therefore, to thwart him, and in reply to Mr. Skinner's exhortation, she said she really could not say exactly how old she was, as she had lost the certificate of her birth; but she believed she was younger than forty-two. The cook and Mr. Kenihazy laughed outright; and the justice assured her, with a smile, that he was not particular about the truth on that point, but he hoped she would be more accurate in her evidence; upon which she took the opportunity of assuring him that she always gave people to understand she was older than she really was.
The questions, Whether she had known Mr. Catspaw? If she had ever seen the culprit before? What she knew of him? &c. &c. put Mrs. Cizmeasz in better spirits, and indemnified her for the disagreeable impression which the first part of the examination had made on her mind.
She was one of those women who will neither hide in the earth nor wrap in a napkin the loquacious talent with which Nature has endowed them.