r though, as he placed his
worn and ragged hat beside his feet, and stroked down his short black
hair on his forehead, a careless observer might have suspected him
of feeling awed and abashed by the presence in which he sat, one more
conversant with his countrymen would have detected in the quiet leer of
his roguish black eye, and a certain protrusion of his thick under lip,
that Darby was as perfectly at his ease there as the eminent judge was
who now fixed his eyes upon him. A short, but not disrespectful nod was
the only notice he bestowed on me; and then concealing his joined hands
within his sleeves, and drawing his legs back beneath the chair, he
assumed that attitude of mock humility your least bashful Irishman is so
commonly fond of.

The veteran barrister was meanwhile surveying the witness with the
peculiar scrutiny of his caste: he looked at him through his spectacles,
and then he stared at him above them; he measured him from head to foot,
his eye dwelling on every little circumstance of his dress or demeanor,
as though to catch some clew to his habits of thinking or acting.
Never did a matador survey the brawny animal with which he was about
to contend in skill or strength with more critical acumen than did the
lawyer regard Darby the Blast. Nor was the object of this examination
unaware of it; very far from this, indeed. He seemed pleased by the
degree of attention bestowed on him, and felt all the flattery
such notice conveyed; but while doing so, you could only detect his
satisfaction in an occasional sidelong look of drollery, which, brief
and fleeting as it was, had still a numerous body of admirers through
the court, whose muttered expressions of "Divil fear ye, Darby! but
ye 're up to them any day;" or "Faix! 't is himself cares little about
them!" showed they had no lack of confidence in the piper.

[Illustration: BrownDarbyInTheChair294]

"Your name is M'Keown, sir?" said the lawyer, with that abruptness
which so often succeeds in oversetting the balance of a witness's
self-possession. "Yes, sir; Darby M'Keown." "Did you ever go by any
other than this?" "They do call me 'Darby the Blast' betimes, av that 'a
a name."

"Is that the only other name you have been called by?" "I misremember
rightly, it's so long since I was among friends and acquaintances; but
if yer honor would remind me a little, maybe I could tell." "Well, were
you ever called 'Larry the Flail?'" "Faix, I was," replied he, laug