(give me the letter of the 25th June)—to say
that old Oliver Davis, in a letter dated the 25th
June, and which we now produce, and which my
learned friend may see if he likes, alludes to this
intended disposition of his property." And
Mr. Cobham read his letter triumphantly.
"But this does not affect the matter. Not in
the least. It would seem, however, that a sort of
coldness sprang up between the friends. Later,
again, a cousin, a William Davis, then an elderly
man, was taken into favour, and on the twenty-
first—of—August," said Mr. Cobham, with
glasses on, and his face well down to his brief,
"eighteen hundred and twelve, he executed a
deed of settlement, by which he conveyed all the
Moore Hall estates—to—William Davis—and
his heirs, in the usual way. That deed was
duly executed, and was in court. His learned
friends were welcome to——"

"We admit all the proofs," said the Serjeant,
contemptuously. "Go on with the case."

"By that deed he made himself tenant for
life, with remainder to William Davis, his first
and other sons in tail male, remainder to his
heirs general, in the usual way, in fact. In
default of these, the estate was settled on his
old friend, General Halton Ross, and his heirs
male. To compress the whole into a sentence,"
said Mr. Cobham, "our case is this."

The story, in short, told them by Mr. Cobham,
and told dramatically, amounted to this: In
course of time, Oliver Davis died, and William
Davis, the cousin, succeeded. William Davis,
the cousin, had one child, called William Oliver
Davis (and indeed, by-and-by, the jury got
bewildered when the learned counsel began
sonorously to ring their names like loud bells, now
pulling "Will-i—am Davis," and then, with a
far fuller reverberation, "Will-i—am O-liver
Davis"), then married, and his daughter, Alice
Olivia Davis, was the defendant in the present
suit.

"I have thus, gentlemen of the jury," said
Mr. Cobham, "taken you so far through all the
steps of the title." So indeed he had. And
that title being conceded satisfactory, the
laymen in court wondered how it was to be
disturbed. So now began the dramatic part. "It
would seem that William Oliver Davis, while a
young man, and previous to his marriage,
travelling in Scotland, fell in with a manufacturer's
daughter of strong will and great
cleverness. This lady, whose father was on
the verge of bankruptcy, had discovered the
prospects that were in store for young William
Oliver Davis, and had determined to secure him.
He was a wild youth, had fallen passionately in
love with the young lady, and, according to Mr.
Cobham, his client had married the manufacturer's
daughter secretly, according to some
Scotch form, which he—William Oliver Davis
—believed would not hold good in England.
"As if," said Mr. Cobham, "that tie, that
holy tie, which is good before Heaven in
one spot shall not be good before the same
tribunal in another; as if the union that is
cemented in the wildest island of the Hebrides
is not to be equally enduring on the ruggedest
shore of the Irish coast; at the Land's End as
well as at John o'Groat's corner! Thank God,"
said Mr. Cobham, warming unexpectedly, "a
Scotch marriage still holds good in this fair
land of England, and is still a protection for helpless
women against the designs of wicked men!"

Later on, the youth returned to his family,
and soon heard that the Scotch lady had turned
out very strangely—had run away from her
parents with a captain—and was supposed to
have died miserably. Three or four years later,
the youth married an heiress, and died, leaving
a daughter. The point of the whole thing was
to be this. As William Oliver was married in
Scotland, or was maintained to have been
married, the second marriage was a nullity,
and the offspring of that marriage—who
was the present defendant—was illegitimate,
and could not "come in" under the terms of the
settlement. It therefore passed to the Rosses,
who were the other parties in remainder named
in the deed.

Then he explained the way in which the
present action came to be brought. The plaintiff's
father was an old and infirm man of eighty
when his rights accrued; was very nervous and
excitable, and declared that he would have "no
law" during the short span of his life that
remained. He had died a couple of years before,
and Ross, the present plaintiff, then serving
in India, had come home at once, and had lost
no time in making his claim.

A very strange case, and stated by Mr. Cobham
with all his usual clearness; but how
would they make it out? This was said by the
great legal unemployed among each other, when
the judge retired to lunch. That was all very
well; but how would they make it out? The
court, as it were, stood at ease. Every one was
chatting, and put on their hats, not that they
cared to have them on, but for the pleasure of
having them on now at least without check or
restraint.

Ross hung about the door, every now and
again putting in his wistful face with the fiery
eyes. "They call this doing justice," he said.
"I begin to see how it will end! That old
swine on the bench cares no more for the case
than he does for an old shoe. It's disgusting.
Look at the way they waste the public time—
jabbering away over his sherry and chop."

A light figure tripped up, a soft fair face was
close to him.

"Well," she asked, timorously, "how is it
going? Well?"

He burst out with a laugh. "Why, how
should it go? How long have they been at it?
Do you expect a thing of this sort to be settled
off-hand? Why, they haven't began; and see!
Don't be plaguing me with expresses and
messages in this way. I have enough on my
mind without that. Go home, do now, like a
good girl." This was gentler than his usual
mode of speech. And she went away quite
grateful. He turned in hastily, fearful of having
lost anything.