"Tush, you're right; the storm has given us the go-by," said the lawyer. "But concerning the case, and that twenty-guinea fee——What's your name?"
"Guineas," said the other, rattling a purse apparently well filled with his namesakes, upon the stone.
"Excellent!" said the lawyer; "but that won't do for a jury. Come, sir, your cognomination, compellation, and so forth? your proprium vocamen, style and title,—Tom, Dick, or Harry, as the case may be? and then for the case! Quisnam homo est? unde et quo? No man is drunk who can quote Latin, for it is cursed hard stuff to remember. In the king's lingo, who are you? and what's the case in question?"
"Who I am, we will pass," said the traveller, "that having nothing to do with the case. As for the case itself, I am told, it is one of murder."
"The devil it is!" cried Affidavy. "Why here's hanging work thickening in the county! But what are the circumstances? Who's killed? and who is the killer?"
"The first was a young man, named Henry Falconer,—the second another young man, called Hyland Gilbert"——
"Hah! why, that's my case, that I've been labouring after all night! and I assure you——But God bless our two souls!" he added suddenly, springing to his feet as if in alarm, "who are you sir? An honest man, sir? I hope, an honest man, sir, and no bloody-minded Hawk, sir! for if you are, sir, I give you warning, sir, if you make an attack upon me, sir, that I carry pistols, sir, and, sir"——
"Peace, fool," said the other, with a stern voice. "Sit down, and fear nothing. If you had twenty pistols, what care I for them?—I," he added, with a laugh both jocose and bitter, "that am armed with twenty—guineas?"
"Right, sir; but if you are a tory, sir—I don't mean to insult you, sir,—but as to aiding and abetting a gentleman of the tory party, sir: why, sir, I am a man of principle, sir, and I must have time to reflect."
"Go to the brook and wallow again: you shall have five minutes to reflect, or rather to sober, for you are not yet in your senses. Why, fool, do you think I will hurt you? or hark! is there a tory bullet in the clink of an English guinea? Come, sit down, and listen. You have nothing to do with tories, save to take their money.—There is one lying in prison in yonder village below, who needs the help of a lawyer. Yourself then, Affidavy, or another."