"'Deed I do, and his mother before him. A dacent man enough, but stupid for all...."
"Well, he is one of the three constables who are now standing at this end of the jury-box—which of them is he?"
"Which? Do you say which, your Honour?" said Bridget, screwing up her wrinkled face. "Why, the off-one, surely."
There was a burst of irrepressible laughter in court—Bridget had chosen wrongly.
The next witness was old Will Skillicorne. He was wearing his chapel clothes, with black kid gloves, large and baggy, and was carrying a silk hat that was as straight and long and almost as brown as a length of stove-pipe. When called upon to swear he said he believed the old Book said "Swear not at all," and when asked what he was he answered that he believed he was "a man of God."
Aw, yes, he believed he remembered the night of the six-seventh of April, and he was returning home from an errand into Andreas when the prisoner passed him coming down the glen.
"At what time would that be?" asked Gell.
"Two or three in the morning, I belave."
"Then it would be still quite dark?"
"I was carrying my lantern, I belave."