Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/311

298 a nice old lawyer you are! I shall never forget the trouble you have taken for me.”

“Enough, Madam, I understand you. I was carried away by my feelings, and honest admiration for the unrivalled dexterity of that last glance. Look at the two ladies again—this time innocently—you would suppose them under the effect of drastic medicine; but enough of this. And now to business. Remember, Mrs. Barber, it was Dodge’s business to hold you up; it’s Lobb’s business to trip you up. Not a single question he puts to you but has a trap behind it,—if he does his work well. Now, mind, the more he bellows the less is the real peril: only when he’s horribly civil keep your wits about you. Don’t forget, either, that you can be as positive as you like, if they haven’t your handwriting to show against you, or nobody was by at the time. You may then trust implicitly to your own memory. I think I’ve taken the last precautions. I have shaken hands with Lobb—(another smile, if you please—thank you, that will do)—his hand’s damp, so I can’t think his cross-examination can come to much. And I’ve directed my clerk to see that lots of pens and paper should be placed before Mr. Barber. If he only takes to prompting Lobb, and Lobb is idiot enough to listen to him, under Providence, we’re safe. Another smile, if you please; thank you. If you see any such manœuvres going on, swear hard, my dear madam, swear hard—they’ve got no evidence in support, and haven’t time to get it, which is more. There,—I can’t do anything more for you. Only remember my last injunction; don’t faint till the last extremity, or we should have all this work to go through again; it is, however, a last resource, if Lobb makes himself particularly unpleasant. Madame Lareine, I trust to you to assist us with a little sympathy—but I wouldn’t venture to suggest anything to you. Ann Iron, if you see me tap my nose with my spectacles, jump up and look at Dr. Lobb as if he owed you a quarter’s wages, and wouldn’t pay: as for you, Mrs. Gollop, if you see your sweet mistress in trouble, you may howl in a low tone, but not so as to get turned out of Court; just as if your own darling Paddy was off in an emigrant ship from the quay at Limerick, and they were passing you down the ladder. Now I must be off; the Usher’s blowing his nose,—that means that Sir Cresswell’s done his sherry. I’ll just step round through the crowd, so that the Jury shan’t think I’ve been talking with you. One more smile, my dear Mrs. Barber. God bless you! Take care of yourself.”

So saying, with a pleasant nod, Mr. Lamb disappeared. The three Judges came back into Court, and for a minute or two there was a general bustle, and shaking into places. In the midst of this, my friend Lamb emerged from the crowd at the other side of the well, just after the door had been opened, and took his seat, but quite out of breath, and as though he had been running hard to be back in time. He was, however, there to conduct Mrs. Barber to the bottom of the steps, and hand her back to the charge of the usher. She was soon inside the pen again, and this time took her seat without any difficulty; indeed, I may go so far as to say that Sir C. C. himself could not have been more at his ease in his own Court than was my graceful little friend Mrs. Barber. Now Dr. Lobb may do his worst—we are all ready, and waiting for him.

Dr. L. “Now, Mrs. Barber, allow me to call your attention for a moment to the incidents immediately preceding your marriage with Mr. Barber. As you have told my learned friend Dr. Dodge, your acquaintance with your future husband commenced in the Ride at Hyde Park?”

Mrs. B. “It did so.”

Dr. L. “You have told the Jury that you, a young lady between sixteen and seventeen years of age, permitted yourself to be addressed in Hyde Park by a gentleman—a perfect stranger to you. Did you mention the fact at all to your parents?”

Mrs. B. “I did not.not.” [sic]

Dr. L. “How was it the groom who attended you—for, I think, we have been told that a groom did attend upon you, during these rides—made no mention at home of the fact?”

Mrs. B. “I am sure I can’t say; you had better ask the man himself.” Mr. Lamb here turned slightly round, and half glanced at Mrs. Barber. I fancied he was not quite satisfied with the tone in which the last answer was given; probably Mrs. B. herself thought so, too, for she added with exceeding politeness: “The groom is still living with Papa, as Mr. Barber well knows.”

Dr. L. “Now stop, Mrs. Barber. You say, ‘Mr. Barber well knows.’ Now, how can you tell what Mr. Barber knows?”

Mrs. B. (As though quite off her guard at the pertness of this question.) “Why, it was a very short time back, when Mr. Barber was exceedingly tipsy, he knocked George down—he was always knocking people down, that was his way—and then gave him five shillings to say nothing about it. I suppose, as George had on Papa’s livery, Mr. Barber knew where he was living then.”

Dr. Lobb did not push this point further. The first passage of arms had not proved very favourable to him. The ferocious husband here stooped forward and whispered something into Dr. Lobb’s ear, with an expression on his face which seemed to imply that Mrs. B.’s last statement was a horrid falsehood, but why waste time upon such stuff? Ah! Barber, my boy! this won’t do. You’re caught at last. You can’t thump Sir Cresswell and beat him about as you did your sweet wife and poor George—perhaps you’d like to try! There, there, that will do. Attention to Dr. Lobb.

Dr. L. “You have given the Jury to understand, Mrs. Barber, that your hurried marriage was purely the result of Mr. Barber’s impetuous fashion of courtship. Now, allow me to ask, Madam, was it not yourself who urged Mr. Barber to run off with you? And was it not owing to his profound respect for you that even the marriage—hasty as it was—was gone through?”

Mrs. B. (Her eyes flashing with anger.) “Is a lady expected to answer such a question—even here?”

Dr. L. “That is no answer, madam—and an answer I must have. Did you, or did you not,