Gell, with a newspaper-cutting in his hand, rose to cross-examine the old woman. "You and your husband are sub-tenants of the prisoner's step-father, isn't that so?" "Certainly we are--you ought to know that much yourself, Sir." "I see you told the High Bailiff you were on bad terms with your landlord." "Bad terms, is it? I wouldn't bemane myself with being on any terms at all with the like." "He threatened to turn you out of your croft at Hollantide, didn't he?" "He did, the dirt!" "And you said you'd see him thrown out before you?" "It's like I did, and it's like I will, too, for if your father, the Spaker...." The Attorney-General rose in alarm. "Is it suggested by these questions that the witness has an animus against the prisoner's family and is conspiring to convict her?" "That," said Gell, in a ringing voice, "is precisely what is suggested." "What?" cried Bridget, bobbing her poke bonnet across at Gell. "Is it a liar you're making me out? Me, that has known you since you were a loblolly-boy in a jacket?" The Deemster intervened to pacify the old woman, and then took her in hand himself. "Bridget," he said, "how far is it from your house on the brews down to the _Clagh-ny-Dooiney_? Is it three or four hundred yards, think you?" "Maybe it is. But it's yourself knows as well as I do, your Honour." "Is your sight still so good that you can see a woman to know her at that distance?" "Aw, well, not so bad anyway. And then wasn't it as bright as day, Sir?" "Listen. This court-house is not more than fifteen yards across, and less than ten to any point from the box in which you stand. Do you think you could recognise anybody you know in this audience?" "Anybody I know? Recognise? Why not, your Honour?" "You know Cain the constable?" "'Deed I do, and his mother before him. A dacent man enough, but stupid for all...." "Well, he is one of the three constables who are now standing at this end of the jury-box--which of them is he?" "Which? Do you say which, your Honour?" said Bridget, screwing up her wrinkled face. "Why, the off-one, surely." There was a burst of irrepressible laughter in court--Bridget had chosen wrongly. The next witness was old Will Skillicorne. He was wearing his chapel clothes, with black kid gloves, large and baggy, and was carrying a silk hat that was as straight and long and almost as brown as a length of stove-pipe. When called upon to swear he said he believed the old Book said "Swear not at all," and when asked what he was he answered that he believed he was "a man of God." Aw, yes, he believed he remembered the night of the six-seventh of April, and he was returning home from an errand into Andreas when the prisoner passed him coming down the glen. "At what time would that be?" asked Gell. "Two or three in the morning, I belave." "Then it would be still quite dark?" "I was carrying my lantern, I belave." "What was the prisoner doing when she passed you?"