THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE BY A.E.W. MASON 1914 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. HENRY THRESK II. ON BIGNOR HILL III. IN BOMBAY IV. JANE REPTON V. THE QUEST VI. IN THE TENT AT CHITIPUR VII. THE PHOTOGRAPH VIII. AND THE RIFLE IX. AN EPISODE IN BALLANTYNE'S LIFE X. NEWS FROM CHITIPUR XI. THRESK INTERVENES XII. THRESK GIVES EVIDENCE XIII. LITTLE BEEDING AGAIN XIV. THE HAZLEWOODS XV. THE GREAT CRUSADE XVI. CONSEQUENCES XVII. TROUBLE FOR MR. HAZLEWOOD XVIII. MR. HAZLEWOOD SEEKS ADVICE XIX. PETTIFER'S PLAN XX. ON THE DOWNS XXI. THE LETTER IS WRITTEN XXII. A WAY OUT OF THE TRAP XXIII. METHODS FROM FRANCE XXIV. THE WITNESS XXV. IN THE LIBRARY XXVI. TWO STRANGERS XXVII. THE VERDICT THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE CHAPTER I HENRY THRESK The beginning of all this difficult business was a little speech which Mrs. Thresk fell into a habit of making to her son. She spoke it the first time on the spur of the moment without thought or intention. But she saw that it hurt. So she used it again--to keep Henry in his proper place. "You have no right to talk, Henry," she would say in the hard practical voice which so completed her self-sufficiency. "You are not earning your living. You are still dependent upon us;" and she would add with a note of triumph: "Remember, if anything were to happen to your dear father you would have to shift for yourself, for everything has been left to me." Mrs. Thresk meant no harm. She was utterly without imagination and had no special delicacy of taste to supply its place--that was all. People and words--she was at pains to interpret neither the one nor the other and she used both at random. She no more contemplated anything happening to her husband, to quote her phrase, than she understood the effect her barbarous little speech would have on a rather reserved schoolboy. Nor did Henry himself help to enlighten her. He was shrewd enough to recognise the futility of any attempt. No! He just looked at her curiously and held his tongue. But the words were not forgotten. They roused in him a sense of injustice. For in the ordinary well-to-do circle, in which the Thresks lived, boys were expected to be an expense to their parents; and after all, as he argued, he had not asked to be born. And so after much brooding, there sprang up in him an antagonism to his family and a fierce determination to owe to it as little as he could.