Now, he should produce the licence under which the marriage took place; he should--despite the incident which Everope had stated as occurring, and which he had probably learned from Michael Sinson--call before them Maud Basset, the mother of Margaret, the only known surviving witness of the ceremony, and she would tell them--they had heard her exclamation in court--that it was a good marriage; he should also call several members of the household of Trevethlan Castle, who would swear they always regarded it as such; and he should show that the children had been christened as the lawful offspring of Henry and Margaret Trevethlan; and again he repeated, that if the unsupported and monstrous testimony of a single individual of bad reputation were permitted to countervail so strong a chain of presumption no union could be secure, and any of his hearers would be liable to have his children disinherited and their names stigmatized by any villain who would forswear himself for hire. Let the jury consider the story they had heard. That a gentleman of high character and station, under circumstances entirely different from those in Goldsmith's famous story, wishing to form a marriage which he might either affirm or repudiate subsequently, should dare to apply to a stranger, a clergyman of the church, to assist him in so nefarious a design,--that this clergyman, far from expressing any indignation, should merely suggest a little difficulty,--that, by a coincidence sufficiently remarkable, this Everope, discarded by his family, living by his wits, should at that very time encounter his old college acquaintance,--that to him Ashton should immediately relate the business, and invite his co-operation,--that this precocious villain should at once accept the mission,--that Mr. Trevethlan should receive him without question or surprise,--that he should perform the impious mockery he had described,--that, needy and profligate, he should keep so valuable a secret for so long a time,--that at length, by another singular coincidence, he should fall in with a dependent of the family to whom it was so important; should tell the story apparently as an excellent joke; should for the first time become aware of its worth, and should sell himself to give the evidence they had heard to-day--Yes: indignation had diverted him from the picture he was drawing to the real motive under which the witness acted.