"As for Miss Brain the governess, she was of a different order from Mr. Biddulph. She told us she had listened to the defendant when he solemnly swore that he had seduced her former pupil, that he had stood in the dock for horse-stealing, and had been the associate of highwaymen and bushrangers, and had made a will for the purpose of fraud; and yet this woman took him by the hand, and was not ashamed of his companionship. His counsel described her as a ministering angel. Heaven defend me from ministering angels if Miss Brain is one!"
The Claimant, while in Australia, being asked what kind of lady his mother (the dowager Lady Tichborne) was, answered, "Oh, a very stout lady; and that is the reason I am so fond of Mrs. Butts of the Metropolitan Hotel, she being a tall, stout, and buxom woman; and like Mrs. Mina Jury (of Wapping), because she was like my mother."
A witness of the name of Coyne was called to give evidence of the recognition of the Claimant by the mother in Paris, and the solicitor said to Coyne, "You see how she recognizes him."
"Yes," said Coyne; "he's lucky."
There was no cross-examination, and Mr. Hawkins said to the jury,
"They need not cross-examine unless they like; it's a free country.
They may leave this man's account unquestioned if they like, but if it
is a true account, what do you say to the recognition?"
Louie, the Dane, said that while the Claimant was on board his ship he amused himself by picking oakum and reading "The Garden of the Soul."
There were several Ospreys spoken to as having picked up the Claimant after the wreck of the Bella, and the defendant had not the least idea which one was the best to carry him safely into harbour. The defendant's counsel, notwithstanding, had told the jury that he, Hawkins, had not ventured to contradict one or other of the stories of the wreck, and had not called the captain of the Osprey which had picked him up.
Comment on such a proposition in advocacy would be ridiculous. Mr. Hawkins dealt with it by an example which the reader will remember as having occurred in his early days:—
"'We don't know which Osprey you mean.' 'Take any one,' says the defendant's counsel, reminding me of the defence of a man charged with stealing a duck, and having given seven different accounts as to how he became possessed of it, his counsel was at last asked which he relied on. 'Oh, never mind which,' he answered; 'I shall be much obliged if the jury will adopt any one of them.'
"You remember, gentlemen, the touching words in which the defendant's counsel spoke of Bogle: 'He is one of those negroes,' said he, 'described by the author of "Paul and Virginia," who are faithful to the death, true as gold itself. If ever a witness of truth came into the box, that witness was Bogle.'