“Bedad I 'm not, sir; very little of that same would have kept out of this to-day.”
“But you came here to serve a friend,—a very old friend, he calls you.”
“Does he?” said Darby, with an energy of tone and manner very different from what he had hitherto used. “Does Master Tom say that?”
As the poor fellow's cheek flushed, and his eyes sparkled with proud emotion, I could perceive that the lawyer's face underwent a change equally rapid. A look of triumph at having at length discovered the assailable point of the witness's temperament now passed over his pale features, and gave them an expression of astonishing intelligence.
“A very natural thing it is, Darby, that he should call you so. You were companions at an early period,—at least of his life; fellow-travellers, too, if I don't mistake?”
Although these words were spoken in a tone of careless freedom, and intended to encourage Darby to some expansion on the same theme, the cunning fellow had recovered all his habitual self-possession, and merely answered, if answer it could be called,—
“I was a poor man, sir, and lived by the pipes.”
The advocate and the witness exchanged looks at this moment, in which their relative positions were palpably conveyed. Each seemed to say it was a drawn battle; but the lawyer returned with vigor to the charge; desiring Darby to mention the manner in which our first acquaintance began, and how the intimacy was originally formed.
He narrated with clearness and accuracy every step of our early wanderings; and while never misstating a single fact, contrived to exhibit my career as totally devoid of any participation in the treasonable doings of the period. Indeed, he laid great stress on the fact that my acquaintance with Charles de Meudon had withdrawn me from all relations with the insurgent party, between whom and the French allies feelings of open dislike and distrust existed. Of the scene at the barrack his account varied in nothing from that I had already given; nor was all the ingenuity of a long and intricate cross-examination able to shake his testimony in the most minute particular.
“Of course, then, you know Sir Montague Crofts? It is quite clear that you cannot mistake a person with whom you had a struggle such as you speak of.”