In appearance this old man was made to assume a superiority over his usual companions. Somebody had dressed him in a black coat, and velvet waistcoat and breeches of the same colour, with a shining pair of top boots—the shape of his hat, too, resembled the clerical fashion. He seemed a vulgar fellow, though not without shrewdness and that air of familiarity, which he might be supposed to have acquired by the freedom necessarily permitted by persons of a better rank of life, to one who was conscious he had the power of performing for them a guilty, but important ceremony.
On entering the witness-box, he leaned forward towards the counsel employed to examine him, with a ludicrous expression of gravity upon his features, and accompanied every answer with a knitting of his wrinkled brow, and significant nodding of his head, which gave peculiar force to his quaintness of phraseology, and occasionally convulsed the court with laughter.
He was interrogated both by Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Coltman in succession.
Who are you, Laing?
Why, I live in Springfield.
Well, what did you do in this affair?
Why, I was sent for to Linton’s, where I found two gentlemen, as it may be, and one lady.
Did you know them?
I did not.
Do you see them in court?