Mr. Lockwood, to whom, as artist, I had been serving as a model, evidently preferred to handle me with pencil rather than with questions, for he was almost as brief as Mr. Reid.  It is my view that they both had consigned me to petrification under Sir Charles Russell, and finding me alive and kicking, thought me too tough to expire under such coups de grace as they could inflict.

We came to banter when Mr. Michael Davitt suggested that the young men of Castleisland took part in nocturnal raids because there was no such social inducement to keep them quiet, as a music-hall or a theatre; but I told him there ought to have been no inducement to them to shoot their neighbours, and that Castleisland was past redemption.

He blandly alluded to my popularity with the tenants before 1880; but I only said that I got on fairly well with them, for I do not think that any agent was ever really popular.

‘Relatively?’ insidiously.

‘Yes.’

Then came this curious question, put with a gentleness that would have aroused the suspicion of a babe:—­

’Did you ever say, in reply to a question put to you by Mr. Townsend Trench as to why you were not shot, that you had told the tenants that if anything happened to you he would succeed you as agent?’

’Yes, I did say so; but it is not original, because it is what Charles II. said to James II.’

This historic reference, which elicited laughter in Court, did not seem intelligible to my questioner, but some better informed person probably soon quoted it to him:—­

’Depend on it, brother James, they will never shoot me to make you king.’

From the kid-glove amenities of Mr. Davitt to the aggressive harshness of Mr. Biggar was a sharp contrast.  He heckled me vigorously, and I retorted to him pretty hotly.  A great deal had been expected of this cross-examination, but the general opinion was that I gave rather better than I received.  Coolness is the despair of cross-examiners, and I think mine made more impression on the Court than the impulsiveness of a dozen inaccurate Nationalists.

Mr. Biggar asked:—­

‘You said you were popular in the district up to 1880?’

I retorted with emphasis:—­

’I never had a serious threat until you mentioned my name in Castleisland, and then people told me, ’Get police protection at once, or you will be shot!’

That made the Court laugh.  Mr. Biggar did not appreciate the humour.  He returned to the charge viciously:—­

’Did not some of your sympathisers light a bonfire in 1878 at Castleisland on account of the triumphs of your buying the Harenc estate? and did not the population of Castleisland, who knew your character, scatter that bonfire, and put it out?’

’I heard they had a row over it.  There were nine bonfires lighted in Kerry after I succeeded.  I was fairly popular until you held up my name as a subject for murder in Castleisland.  You said Hussey might be a very bad man, but you would take care of one thing—­that if any person was charged with shooting him, or any other agent, they would be defended, which meant they would be paid.’