Mooney, solicitor for the Brickleys, widely known, and respected as "Roaring Jack," was in possession of that much-enduring organ, the ear of the Court.
"Now, Kate Keohane!" he thundered, "tell me what time it was when all this was going on?"
"About duskish, sir. Con Brickley was slashing the f-fish at me mother the same time. He never said a word but to take the shtick and fire me dead with it on the sthrand. He gave me plenty of blood to dhrink, too,"
said the witness, with acid decorum. She paused to permit this agreeable fact to sink in, and added, "his wife wanted to f-fashten on me the same time, an" she havin" the steer of the boat to sthrike me."
These were not precisely the facts that Mr. Murphy, as solicitor for the defence, wished to elicit.
"Would you kindly explain what you mean by the steer of the boat?" he demanded, sparring for wind in as intimidating a manner as possible. The witness stared at him.
"Sure, "tis the shtick, like, that they pulls here and there to go in their choice place."
"We may presume that the lady is referring to the tiller," said Mr.
Mooney, with a facetious eye at the Bench. "Maybe now, ma"am, you can explain to us what sort of a boat is she?"
"She"s that owld that if it wasn"t for the weeds that"s holding her together she"d bursht up in the deep."
"And who owns this valuable property?" pursued Mr. Mooney.
"She"s between Con Brickley and me brother, an the saine[1] is between four, an" whatever crew does be in it should get their share, and the boat has a man"s share."
I made no attempt to comprehend this, relying with well-founded confidence on Flurry Knox"s grasp of such enigmas.
"Was Con Brickley fishing the same day?"
"He was not, sir. He was at Lisheen Fair; for as clever as he is, he couldn"t kill two birds under one slat!"
Kate Keohane"s voice moved unhurried from sentence to sentence, and her slow, pale eyes turned for an instant to the lair of the witnesses under the gallery.
"And you"re asking the Bench to believe that this decent man left his business in Lisheen in order to slash fish at your mother?" said Mr.
Mooney, truculently.
"B"lieve me, sorra much business he laves afther him wherever he"ll go!"
returned the witness. "Himself and his wife had business enough on the sthrand when the fish was dividing, and it is then themselves put every name on me."
"Ah, what harm are names!" said Mr. Mooney, dallying elegantly with a ma.s.sive watch-chain.
"Come, now, ma"am! will you swear you got any ill-usage from Con Brickley or his wife?" He leaned over the front of his pew, and waited for the answer with his ma.s.sive red head on one side.
"I was givin" blood like a c-cow that ye"d shtab with a knife!" said Kate Keohane, with unshaken dignity. "If it was yourself that was in it ye"d feel the smart as well as me. My hand and word on it, ye would! The marks is on me head still, like the prints of dog-bites!"
She lifted a lock of hair from her forehead, and exhibited a sufficiently repellent injury. Flurry Knox leaned forward.
"Are you sure you haven"t that since the time there was that business between yourself and the post-mistress at Munig? I"m told you had the name of the post-office on your forehead where she struck you with the office stamp! Try, now, sergeant, can you read Munig on her forehead?"
The Court, not excepting its line of church-wardens, dissolved into laughter; Kate Keohane preserved an offended silence.
"I suppose you want us to believe," resumed Mr. Mooney, sarcastically, "that a fine, hearty woman like you wasn"t defending yourself!" Then, with a turkey-c.o.c.k burst of fury, "On your oath, now! What did you strike Honora Brickley with? Answer me that now! What had you in your hand?"
"I had nothing only the little rod I had after the a.s.s," answered Miss Keohane, with a child-like candour. "I done nothing to them; but as for Con Brickley, he put his back to the cliff and he took the flannel wrop that he had on him, and he threw it on the sthrand, and he said he would have blood, murdher, or f-fish!"
She folded her shawl across her breast, a picture of virtue a.s.sailed, yet una.s.sailed.
"You may go down now," said "Roaring Jack," rather hastily, "I want to have a few words with your brother."
Miss Keohane retired, without having moulted a feather of her dignity, and her brother Jer came heavily up the steps and on to the platform, his hot, wary, blue eyes gathering in the Bench and the attorneys in one bold, comprehensive glance. He was a tall, dark man of about five and forty, clean-shaved, save for two clerical inches of black whiskers, and in feature of the type of a London clergyman who would probably preach on Browning.
"Well, sir!" began Mr. Mooney, stimulatingly, "and are you the biggest blackguard from here to America?"
"I am not," said Jer Keohane, tranquilly.
"We had you here before us not so very long ago about kicking a goat, wasn"t it? You got a little touch of a pound, I think?"
This delicate allusion to a fine that the Bench had thought fit to impose did not distress the witness.
"I did, sir."
"And how"s our friend the goat?" went on Mr. Mooney, with the furious facetiousness reserved for hustling tough witnesses.
"Well, I suppose she"s something west of the Skelligs by now," replied Jer Keohane with great composure.
An appreciative grin ran round the Court. The fact that the goat had died of the kick and been "given the cliff" being regarded as an excellent jest.
Mr. Mooney consulted his notes:
"Well, now, about this fight," he said, pleasantly, "did you see your sister catch Mrs. Brickley and pull her hair down to the ground and drag her shawl off of her?"
"Well," said the witness, airily, "they had a bit of a scratch on account o" the fish. Con Brickley had the shteer o" the boat in his hand, and says he, "is there any man here that"ll take the shteer from me?" The man was dhrunk, of course," added Jer charitably.
"Did you have any talk with his wife about the fish?"
"I couldn"t tell the words that she said to me!" replied the witness, with a reverential glance at the Bench, "and she over-right three crowds o" men that was on the sthrand."
Mr. Mooney put his hands in his pockets and surveyed the witness.
"You"re a very refined gentleman, upon my word! Were you ever in England?"
"I was, part of three years."
"Oh, that accounts for it, I suppose!" said Mr. Mooney, accepting this lucid statement without a stagger, and pa.s.sing lightly on. "You"re a widower, I understand, with no objection to consoling yourself?"
No answer.
"Now, sir! Can you deny that you made proposals of marriage to Con Brickley"s daughter last Shraft?"
The plot thickened. Con Brickley"s daughter was my kitchen maid.
Jer Keohane smiled tolerantly. "Ah! that was a thing o" nothing."