Boy Woodburn Part 45

"Miss Woodburn."

The girl was called. Her evidence was very brief. Mr. Silver had given her the knife. She had taken it to the cottage where the prisoner lodged and handed it back to the woman there.

To substantiate the charge that Mr. Silver was actuated by malice, the counsel for the defence called evidence to prove the scene that had taken place between the witness and the accused on the way to the meet.

On this point the prisoner gave further evidence himself.

"You met Mr. Silver later in the day?"

"I did."

"What happened?"

"He rode at me and struck me."

"What for?"

"He said he'd show a ---- convict how to speak to a gentleman; and he'd get me put away."

"Was anybody present?"

The accused laughed.

"No fear! He waited till he got me alone."

"What time was this?"

"About two-thirty."

"Where?"

"Just outside Prior's Wood."

Mr. Silver, recalled by the prosecuting counsel, was re-examined as to the facts alleged by Joses.

"Did you strike the prisoner?"

"I gave him one with the lash of my crop."

"Under what circ.u.mstances?"

The witness explained.

"Did you say the words attributed to you?"

"I did _not_."

"Did any words pa.s.s between you?"

There was a pause.

"After I struck him, while he was messing about with his knife, he said: 'I'll do time for you!'"

"Did you say anything?"

There was another pause.

"I said: 'What! More?'"

In cross-examination the counsel for the defence asked the young banker what he meant when he said to the prisoner--"'What! More?'"

Silver was silent.

"Were you referring to the fact that the accused had been in trouble?"

"Yes."

"And you're a sportsman?"

No answer.

"And a gentleman?"

In his speech for the prosecution counsel pointed out that the motive for the crime--the one point in doubt--had been established. Joses had been a little too clever and had established it himself. He had supplied the one missing link, and would be hung in a chain of his own making.

The two men had come to words and blows. Joses, smarting alike in body and mind, had trotted home and, beside himself with rage and a desire for revenge, had committed this most insensate and abominable crime.

The jury found the prisoner guilty without leaving the box, and the judge, who described the crime as deliberate, malignant, and the work of a frustrated fiend, gave him a swinging sentence.

PART II

THE WOMAN AND THE HORSE

BOOK IV

THE TRIAL

CHAPTER XXIX

Albert Edward