B. could not tell—it looked something like her handwriting—but if she was made aware of the contents she would be better able to answer the question. I observed that she glanced at the direction. The letter was finally handed to the gentleman with the despatch-box, who rose up, fixed his double-glasses upon his nose, and read it to the Court. It was, however, unfortunate that his glasses were always falling off at the most critical points of this composition—so that a good deal of the fire and spirit were inevitably lost.
“My angel Augustus—When will this end? I have been distracted since we parted. I fear that every moment will bring a discovery—and then I am lost. Oh! yes, lost—lost. For what is to become of poor Cecilia if her Augustus is taken from her. Send me, my beloved, or rather give me to-morrow a scrap of those surpassing (here the glasses fell off) whiskers—
By the Court. “Whiskers!—that can’t be. Ladies don’t ask for scraps of gentlemen’s whiskers. Did any lady ever ask for a scrap of your whiskers, Dr. Lobb?”
Dr. Lobb looked a little foolish, for his whiskers were magnificent; so that if no lady had requested a scrap of them, other considerations must have stood in the way.
Reading continued. “Whiskers,” it certainly is whiskers here, my Lord! “which first captivated my young heart, and awoke in me a sense of bliss unutterable. Oh! Augustus, you slow plunger, why should we wait for the rubbishy licence, just as if we were going to open a public-house—if we do it shall be (down went the glasses again), the Augustus Arms. Of course we’ll go and get the fuss over, and get married somewhere or other; but I want to be with Augustus, and away from here. The Governor is so slow now—so dreadfully, horridly, wretchedly slow that it makes my poor head ache to think of him. Oh! you naughty, naughty man, you have quite bewitched your poor Cecilia. My only comfort is practising smoking with the cigars you gave me. They’re rather too full for me—I should prefer mediums. Good bye, you dear, deluding Don Whiskerando. Mind to-morrow—at the tree by the Band at half-past eleven. I’m going to make myself some sherry cobbler to-night—as you told me. I ran down-stairs when dinner was laid, and got some sherry in a physic-bottle—and I took some out of each of the decanters, so that it should not be missed; and yet, Augustus, you call your Cecilia thoughtless—and I have pulled two straws out of Mama’s Tuscan bonnet, which I dare say will do—if not I will bubble it up through a quill. There, good night again, you dear old thing. Sissy.”
Dr. L. “Well, Mrs. Barber, what do you say to that? Did you write that letter?”Mrs. B. (With withering contempt.) “No.”
Dr. L. “By virtue of your oath, Madam—and warning you fully as to the consequences of bearing false testimony—I repeat the question. Did you write that letter, or did you not?”
Mrs. B. “Never! I should think it impossible that any lady ever wrote such a letter as that.”
Dr. Lobb tried to look as if he had full grounds for establishing an indictment of perjury against Mrs. Barber; but the feeling in Court ran sadly against him, a feeling much increased when it turned out, in answer to a question from the old Judge, that the letter bore no post-mark, and had not, in point of fact, been transmitted through the post at all. Dr. Lobb, when summoned to explain how the letter came into his possession, was obliged to admit that the theory for the defence was, that this strange love-epistle, and many others of a similar character, had been conveyed by the then Miss Cecilia Montresor’s nurse, Mrs. Gollop—now actually present in Court—to the hands of a certain Joseph Muck, since deceased, but at that time living in the capacity of groom with Mr. Barber. My friend, Mr. Lamb, at this moment was distinctly heard to utter the interjection “Phoo!”—but at the same moment his face expressed so much respect for the Court, as he looked upward to the old Judge to see what course he would be pleased to adopt, that it was impossible to find fault with him. Not so with Mrs. Gollop. It had been quite evident for some time that that lady had been struggling with her emotions; but she was roused to a point beyond which further control was impossible at the mention of her own name, and felt that she was called upon at once to testify on behalf of her outraged mistress. Her artless anger took the form of an attack upon Mr. Barber and Dr. Lobb.
Mrs. Gollop. “Oh, you dirty, murderin’ villins!” (such was the manner of her testimony) “do you mane to say that me darlin’ young lady who’s the hoigth of nobility, and propriety of spache, ever demaned herself by wroiting to the loikes o’ you? That for you” (this to Mr. Barber, snapping her fingers), “and the ugly lawyer” (this to Dr. Lobb) “who sits there by the side o’ you, to tell lies against ladies o’ burth and fa-amily at so much a-pace! Bad cess to you, you dirty ha'porth o’ yalla soap!” (this to Dr. Lobb)—“down on your knase, and ask swate Miss Sissy’s pardon, and his noble Lordship’s. And as for you, you two ould withered mopsticks!” (this to the two Misses Barber) “how durst you call the best blood of ould Ireland ‘dregs'—how durst you do it? Be out of this wid your durty Carnwall, you low-barn, pilchard-ating pair—the divil a tooth have you in your gums, or a hair on your heads betwixt you, barrin’ five gray ones—and they’re false. I’ll bally-rag them, Miss Sissy, dear—”
I grieve to say, that at this point these touching manifestations of Celtic attachment were interrupted by Sir C. C., who, without the smallest regard to the pathos of her situation, ordered that Mrs. Gollop should be removed from the Court. This was done; but even as Mrs. G. departed, she continued to uplift her voice in testimony.
Mrs. G. “If it was me last wurds I’d say”—(Usher.—“Now, my good woman.”) “Don’t good woman me—yer durt, or pull a dacent lady about in so particular a way. Niver did hand o’ moine carry letter to Joseph Muck, who’s in thick tarments by this toime—Muck by name, and muck by nature—”
By this time the act of extrusion was completed—but still from the passage you heard the last sounds of the scuffle, and various suggestions not