“Well, I’m afraid I mustn’t ask you what sort of a character the prisoner bears. I daresay my learned friend would object.”
Now, “my learned friend” was Mr. Blackburn, whom my father had fee’d to appear for Ephraim a tall, portly man, who would have made two of Mr. Alison. A sleepier-looking mortal I never saw. I could have found it in my heart to stick a pin in him that morning, for he sprawled rather than sat in his place at the attornies’ table, with his hands in his pockets his eyes closed, and seeming to take no interest at all in what was going on, whilst my heart was all of a flutter, and I could scarce keep still for a minute at a time. He half opened his eyes now.
“You know very well you mustn’t ask as to character. Can’t hang a man on his character, else some of us would stand a poor chance.”
A constable sniggered, then looked sternly at the back of the Court and bawled, indignantly, “Silence in Court.”
“I’m glad my learned friend has so just an appreciation of the gravity of his position,” quoth Mr. Alison, and the Chairman of the Bench smiled; and at that all the constables felt at liberty to laugh, and so, of course, did not a few of the spectators. But Mr. Blackburn had apparently gone to sleep again.
“Did you see the prisoner leave the town on the evening of that day?”
“Yes, sir, about seven o’clock.”
“What sort of a night was it?”
“Pretty dark, but fineish. There’d been some smartish rain during th’ afternoon, but it had cleared”
“By which way did the prisoner go?”