and that he had a
mole upon his left temple.

"One of these witnesses is--the mother that bore him.

"I shall then call witnesses to prove that, on the 15th of October, the
bridge over the mere was in bad repair, and a portion of the side rail
gone; and that the body was found within a few yards of that defective
bridge; and then, as Thomas Leicester went that way, drunk, and
staggering from side to side, you may reasonably infer that he fell
into the water in passing the bridge. To show you this is possible, I
shall prove the same thing has actually occurred. I shall swear the
oldest man in the parish, who will depose to a similar event that
happened in his boyhood. He hath said it a thousand times before to-day,
and now will swear it. He will tell you that on a certain day,
sixty-nine years ago, the parson of Hernshaw, the Rev. Augustus
Murthwaite, went to cross this bridge at night, after carousing at
Hernshaw Castle with our great-grandfather, my husband's and mine, the
then proprietor of Hernshaw, and tumbled into the water; and his body
was found gnawed out of the very form of humanity by the fishes, within
a yard or two of the spot where poor Tom Leicester was found, that hath
cost us all this trouble. So do the same causes bring round the same
events in a cycle of years. The only difference is that the parson drank
his death in our dining-room, and the pedler in our kitchen.

"No doubt, my lord, you have observed that sometimes a hasty and
involuntary inaccuracy gives quite a wrong color to a thing. I assure
you I have suffered by this. It is said that the moment Mr. Atkins
proposed to drag my mere, I fainted away. In this account there is an
omission. I shall prove that Mr. Atkins used these words: 'And
underneath that water I undertake to find the remains of Griffith
Gaunt.' Now, gentlemen, you shall understand that at this time, and
indeed until the moment when I saw the shoes upon that poor corpse's
feet, I was in great terror for my husband's life. How could it be
otherwise? Caroline Ryder had told me she heard his cry for help. He had
disappeared. What was I to think? I feared he had fallen in with
robbers. I feared all manner of things. So when the lawyer said so
positively he would find his body, I was overpowered. Ah, gentlemen,
wedded love survives many wrongs, many angry words; I love my husband
still; and when the man told me so brutally that he was certainly dead,
I fainted away. I confess it. S