'
'Oh, what awful lies!' cried the wife. 'It's a wonder you don't fall
dead!'
'You were not there,' the Clerk remarked quietly. 'Now, Oby, what is
your defence? Have you got any witnesses?'
'No; I ain't got no witnesses. All as I did, I know I walked up the
hedge to look for mushrooms. I saw one of them things'--meaning the
wires on the table--'and I just stooped down to see what it was, 'cos I
didn't know. I never seed one afore; and I was just going to pick it up
and look at it' (the magistrates glance at each other, and cannot
suppress a smile at this profound innocence), 'when this fellow jumped
out and frightened me. I never seed no rabbit.'
'Why, you put the rabbit in your pocket,' interrupts the first witness.
'Never mind,' said the Clerk to the witness; 'let him go on.'
'That's all as I got to say,' continues the defendant. 'I never seed no
such things afore; and if he hadn't come I should have put it down
again.'
'But you were trespassing,' said the Clerk.
'I didn't know it. There wasn't no notice-board.'
'Now, Oby,' cried the head keeper, 'you know you've been along that lane
this ten years.'
'That will do' (from the chairman); 'is there any more evidence?'
As none was forthcoming, the Bench turned a little aside and spoke in
low tones. The defendant's wife immediately set up a sobbing, varied
occasionally by a shriek; the infant woke up and cried, and two or three
women of the same party behind began to talk in excited tones about
'Shame.
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