Counsel.--"They do. You marked his coming by the church clock. Pray what clock did you say struck when he went?" Witness.--"No; it did not strike. It was the cuckoo that went." Counsel.--"But does your cuckoo always sing right, my good woman?" Witness.--"Not always, Sir. It is a bit too fast at times." Counsel.--"It is not worse than other cuckoos, I dare say. There are some of them fast, some of them slow, like men's minds-- ''Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.' Can you give me any notion how much your cuckoo clock was usually before the church clock? It differed, of course; but on the average--at its ordinary rate of going?" Witness.--"Why it got on two or three minutes a-day; but I do not recollect when I last put it back with my thumb." Counsel.-- "'Ay, 'tis beyond the date of memory: Event upon event so oft hath trod, With quick recurring foot, 'tis hard to trace The worn-out print of Time's incessant step.' But cannot you give me some idea of what day you usually put the cuckoo clock back with your thumb? These things acquire a regularity by habit which is rarely deviated from, especially in regard to clocks. Every man, woman, and child in the kingdom who has a clock, watch, or other indicator of Time's progress, has some particular day, or perhaps hour for winding up and putting it right. Can you tell me what day you wound up your cuckoo clock, and whether you put it by the church or not on that day?" Witness.--"I always wound it up o' Saturday, at about eleven, when I had put the pot on; and I generally set it to rights by the church, if I could hear it, that we might not be late at service the next day." Counsel.--"And if you did not set it on Saturday, did you ever meddle with it during the week?" Witness.--"Not that I remember ever. I did the two jobs together; for I had to get up upon the stool, which I was not over fond of, for the stool was old, and I was old; and if we had tumbled we might both have gone to pieces." All the bar laughed heartily, and encouraged the good old woman amazingly: but the great barrister did not forget his point. Counsel.--"Am I to understand you, that if you did not set the clock on Saturday, you did not set it during the week?" Witness.--"No, never." "Then can you tell me if you set it on the Saturday before the prisoner returned?" asked the counsel. Witness.--"I can't justly recollect." Counsel.--"Well, it got on two or three minutes a-day, you say; so if you did set it on Saturday, the thirty-first of January, it would have got on from ten to twelve minutes, at the least, and might have done so a quarter-of-an-hour, before the evening of Thursday, the fifth; which would make your other calculation right, that the prisoner returned about half-past four, by the church clock, remained a quarter-of-an-hour or twenty minutes, and went away at five by the cuckoo, or a quarter to five by the church."