who for his evil deeds had been driven from
Machynlleth to London, and from London back again to Machynlleth, and the
other, who was his brother, a fellow not much better, and who, moreover,
could not speak a word of English--the honest lawyer forgetting no doubt
that his own client had just as little English as the keeper. He
repeated that he hoped the court would not convict his respectable client
on the evidence of these fellows, more especially as they flatly
contradicted each other in one material point, one saying that words had
passed between the farmer and himself, and the other that no words at all
had passed, and were unable to corroborate their testimony by anything
visible or tangible. If his client speared the salmon and then flung the
salmon with the spear sticking in its body into the pool, why didn't they
go into the pool and recover the spear and salmon? They might have done
so with perfect safety, there being an old proverb--he need not repeat
it--which would have secured them from drowning had the pool been not
merely over the tops of the houses but over the tops of the steeples.
But he would waive all the advantage which his client derived from the
evil character of the witnesses, the discrepancy of their evidence, and
their not producing the spear and salmon in court. He would rest the
issue of the affair with confidence, on one argument, on one question; it
was this. Would any man in his senses--and it was well known that his
client was a very sensible man--spear a salmon not his own when he saw
two keepers close at hand watching him--staring at him? Here the
chairman observed that there was no proof that he saw them--that they
were behind a bush. But my friend the attorney very properly, having the
interest of his client and his own character for consistency in view,
stuck to what he had said, and insisted that the farmer must have seen
them, and he went on reiterating that he must have seen them,
notwithstanding that several magistrates shook their heads.

Just as he was about to sit down I moved up behind him and whispered:
"Why don't you mention the dog? Wouldn't the dog have been likely to
have scented the fellows out even if they had been behind the bush?"

He looked at me for a moment and then said with a kind of sigh: "No, no!
twenty dogs would be of no use here. It's no go--I shall leave the case
as it is."

The court was cleared for a time, and when the audience were again
admi