CHAPTER L. A TRIAL—CONCLUSION
The second day was chiefly occupied in examining witnesses,—old acquaintances of my father's, for the most part, who had known him on his return to Ireland, and who could bear their testimony as to the manner in which he lived, and the acceptance he and my mother had met with in the best society of the capital. Though their evidence really went no further than a mere impression on their part, it was easy to perceive that its effect was most favorable on the jury; nor could cross-examination elicit the slightest flaw in the belief that they lived amongst their equals, without the shadow of aspersion on their honor.
An uninterested spectator of the scene might have felt amusement in contrasting the description of manners and habits with the customs of the present time; for although the evidence referred to a period so recent, yet were all the details mixed up with usages, opinions, and ways that seemed those of a long-past epoch. Men were just then awakening after that long and splendid orgie which had formed the life of Ireland before the Union. With bankrupt fortunes and ruined estates, they saw themselves the successors of a race whose princely hospitalities had never known a limit, and who had really imparted a character of barbaric splendor to lives of reckless extravagance.
A certain Mr. Archdall was examined as to his recollection of Castle Carew and the company who frequented there. He had been my father's guest when the Viceroy visited him; and certainly his account of the festivities might well have startled the credulity of his hearers. It was not at first apparent with what object these revelations were elicited by the cross-examination; but at length it came out that they were intended to show that my father, having no heir, nor expecting to have any, suffered himself to follow a career of the wildest wastefulness. With equal success they drew forth from the witness stories of my mother's unpopularity with the ladies of her own set in society, and the suspicion and distrust that pervaded the world of fashion that she had not originally been born in, or belonged to, the class with which she was then associating.
It was but too plain to what all this pointed; and although old servants of the family were brought forward to show the deference with which my mother's position was ever regarded, and the degree of respect, almost amounting to state, with which she was treated, yet the artfulness of the cross-examiner had at least succeeded in representing her to the jury as self-willed, vain, and capricious, constantly longing for a return to France, and cordially hating her banishment to Ireland. My mother's friendship and attachment to Polly Fagan was ingeniously alluded to as a strange incident in the life of one whose circumstances might seem to have separated her from such companionship; and the able counsel dwelt most effectively on the disparity which separated their conditions.
These circumstances were, however, not pressed home, but rather left to make their impression, with more or less of force, while other incidents were being related. To rebut in some measure these impressions, Foxley showed that my mother had been a guest at the Viceroy's table,—an honor which could not have been conferred on her on any questionable grounds. Unimportant and trivial as was the fact, the mode of eliciting it formed one of the amusing episodes of the trial, since it brought forward on the witness-table a well-known character of old Dublin,—no less a functionary than Samuel Cotterell, the hall trumpeter, now pensioned off and retired, but still, with all the weight of nearly fourscore-and-ten years, bearing himself erect, and carrying in his port the consciousness of his once high estate and dignity.
It was some time before the old man could be persuaded that in all the state and pomp of the justice-seat there was not occasion for some exercise of his ancient functions.
He seemed ashamed at appearing without his tabard, and looked anxiously around for his trumpet; but once launched upon the subject of his recollections, he appeared to revel with eager delight in all the associations they called up. It was perfectly miraculous to see with what tenacity he retained a memory of the festivities of old Viceregal times; they lived, however, in his mind like distinct pictures, unconnected with all around him. There was a duke in his “garter,” and a duchess in her diamonds; a gorgeously decked table; pineapples that came from France; and a dessert wine newly arrived from Portugal, some of which Sir Amyrald Fitzgerald spilled on Madame Carew's dress; at which she laughed pleasantly, and, in showing the stains, displayed her ankles to Barry Rutledge, who whispered his Grace that there was not such a foot and leg in Ireland. Lord Gartymore backed Kitty O'Dwyer's for fifty pounds, and lost his wager.
“How, then, was the bet decided, Mr. Cotterell?”
“We saw her dance the minuet with Colonel Candler, and my Lord said he had lost.”