"Is it more than a larceny, sir?" said I.
"I'd rather it didn't go too far," said I, for I was beginning to feel afraid of what I had done.
"Leave that to me, Con," said Mr. Morissy, "and go down to yer breakfast."
I did as I was bid, and never stirred out of the house the whole day, nor for eight days after; when one morning Morissy bid me clean myself, and brush my hair, to come with him to the Court-house.
I guessed at once what was going to happen; and now, as my head was healed, and all my bruises cured, I'd very gladly have forgiven all the affair, and gone home again with my father; but it was too late. As Mr. Morissy said, with a grin, "The law is an elegant contrivance; a child's finger can set it in motion, but a steam engine could not hold it back afterwards!"
The Court was very full that morning; there were five magistrates on the bench, and Mr. Ball in the middle of them. There were a great many farmers, too, for it was market-day; and numbers of the townspeople, who all knew my father, and were not sorry to see him "up." Cregan versus Cregan stood third on the list of cases; and very little interest attached to the two that preceded it. At last it was called; and there I stood before the Bench, with five hundred pair of eyes all bent upon me; and two of them actually looking through my very brain,--for they were my father's, as he stood at the opposite side of the table below the Bench.
The case was called an assault, and very soon terminated; for, by my own admission, it was clear that I deserved punishment; though probably not so severely as it had been inflicted. The judge delivered a very impressive lesson to my father and myself, about our respective duties, and dismissed the case with a reproof, the greater share of which fell to me. "You may go now, sir," said he, winding up a line peroration; "fear God and honor the king; respect your parents, and make your capitals smaller."
"Before your worship dismisses the witness," said Morissy, "I wish to put a few questions to him."
"The case is disposed of: call the next," said the judge, angrily.
"I have a most important fact to disclose to your worship,--one which is of the highest importance to the due administration of justice,--one which, if suffered to lie in obscurity, will be a disgrace to the law, and a reproach to the learned Bench."