An audible titter from the other side greeted the witness as he uttered the last sentence. Mr. S ——, with one of his complacent glances at the jury-box, remarking in a sufficiently loud whisper, "That he had never heard a more conclusive reason for not telling in his life."
"Did you mention that you were present at the death of the late baronet?"
"Yes I did. I told un that I were within about three hundred red yards of late master when he had that ugly fall; and that when I got up to un, he sort of pulled me down, and whispered hoarse-like, 'Send for Reverend Zachariah Zimmerman.' I remembered it, it was sich an outlandish name like."
"Oh, oh," thought I, as Mr. S —— reached across the table for the parish register, "Z.Z. is acquiring significance I perceive."
"Well, and what did this gentleman say to that?"
"Say? Why, nothing particular, only seemed quite joyful 'mazed like; and when I asked un why, he said it was such a comfort to find his good friend Sir Harry had such pious thoughts in his last moments."
The laugh, quickly suppressed, that followed these words, did not come from our learned friends on the other side.
"Sir Harry used those words?"
"He did; but as he died two or three minutes after, it were of course no use to send for no parson whatsomever."
"Exactly. That will do, unless the other side have any questions to ask." No question was put, and the witness went down. "Call," said I to the crier of the court—"call the Reverend Zachariah Zimmerman."