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.
Pages:
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669