The High Bailiff was on one knee before the fire in his office, holding
a newspaper in front of it to make it burn.
"Nobody else here yet?" asked my father.
"Traa dy liooar" (time enough), the High Bailiff muttered.
He was an elderly man of intemperate habits who spent his nights at the
"Crown and Mitre," and was apparently out of humour at having been
brought out of bed so early.
His office was a room of his private house. It had a high desk, a stool
and a revolving chair. Placards were pinned on the walls, one over
another, and a Testament, with the binding much worn, lay on a table.
The place looked half like a doctor's consulting room, and half like a
small police court.
Presently Mr. Curphy, my father's advocate, came in, rather irritatingly
cheerful in that chill atmosphere, and, half an hour late, my intended
husband arrived, with his London lawyer and his friend Eastcliff.
My mind was far from clear and I had a sense of seeing things by flashes
only, but I remember that I thought Lord Raa was very nervous, and it
even occurred to me that early as it was he had been drinking.
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