"LET THE DIVIL CLEAR ME OUT OF THE STHRAND!"
"It was then she got the blow, I suppose!" said McCaffery venomously; "you had a stick yourself, I daresay?"
"Yes. I had a stick. I must have a stick," deep and mellow pathos was hinted at in the voice; "I am sorry to say. What could I do to her? A man with a wooden leg on a sthrand could do nothing!"
Something like a laugh ran round the back of the court. Mr. McCaffery's ears turned scarlet and became quite decorative. On or off a strand Con Brickley was not a person to be scored off easily.
His clumsy yet impressive descent from the witness-stand followed almost immediately, and was not the least telling feature of his evidence. Mr. Mooney surveyed his exit with the admiration of one artist for another, and rising, asked the Bench's permission to call Mrs. Brickley.
Mrs. Brickley, as she mounted to the platform, in the dark and nun-like severity of her long cloak, the stately blue cloth cloak that is the privilege of the Munster peasant woman, was an example of the rarely blended qualities of picturesqueness and respectability. As she took her seat in the chair, she flung the deep hood back on to her shoulders, and met the gaze of the Court with her grey head erect; she was a witness to be proud of.
A WITNESS TO BE PROUD OF
"Now Mrs. Brickley," said "Roaring Jack" urbanely, "will you describe this interview between your daughter and Keohane."