Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/742

622 "Humph! His eyes?"

"Well now, he has a kind of cast in them, sir, a sort of a squint very much like your honour's eyes."

"Psha! You may go down."

In or about 1768 John Dunning was retained in a case of murder. The story told is this:—

Edward Gould, of Pridhamsleigh, died in 1736, and as he was the last of the elder branch of the family, he left all his lands in Staverton, Ashburton, Holne, Widdecombe-on-the-Moor, and Chudleigh to William Drake Gould, of Lew Trenchard, the representative of the next branch, who was then a minor. This William Drake Gould died in 1766, and all his estates devolved on his only son Edward, born in 1740. Edward was a spendthrift and a gambler. One evening he had been playing late and deep, and had lost every guinea he had about him. Then he rode off, put a black mask over his face, and waylaid the man who had won the money of him, and on his appearance, challenged him to deliver. The gentleman recognized him and incautiously exclaimed, "Oh! Edward Gould, I did not think this of you!"

"You know me, do you?" was his reply, and Edward shot him dead. Then he rode to Pridhamsleigh, reversed his horse's shoes, and sped across Dartmoor to Lew Trenchard.

Now there had been a witness, a man who had seen Edward take up his position, and who, believing him to be a highwayman, had secreted himself and waited an opportunity to effect his escape. Edward Gould was tried for the murder. Dunning was engaged to defend him. It was essential to weaken or destroy the testimony of the witness. On the day of the trial he cross-questioned this same witness sharply.

"How can you be sure that the man on the horse