But in all that crowd, no one went near Cotherstone. There were many of his fellow-members of the Corporation in it—councillors, aldermen—but none of them approached him or even nodded to him; all they did was to stare. The news of what had happened had quickly leaked out: it was known before he came into view that Cotherstone had been discharged—his appearance in that bold, self-assured fashion only led to covert whispers and furtive looks. But suddenly, from somewhere in the crowd, a sneering voice flung a contemptuous taunt across the staring faces.
“Well done, Cotherstone!—saved your own neck, anyway!”
There was a ripple of jeering laughter at that, and as Cotherstone turned angrily in the direction from whence the voice came, another, equally contemptuous, lifted itself from another corner of the crowd.
“King’s evidence! Yah!—who’d believe Cotherstone? Liar!”
Cotherstone’s face flushed angrily—the flush died as quickly away and gave place to a sickly pallor. And at that a man who had stood near him beneath the portico, watching him inquisitively, stepped nearer and whispered—
“Go home, Mr. Cotherstone!—take my advice, and get quietly away, at once!”
Cotherstone rejected this offer of good counsel with a sudden spasm of furious anger.
“You be hanged!” he snarled. “Who’s asking you for your tongue? D’ye think I’m afraid of a pack like yon? Who’s going to interfere with me, I’d like to know? Go home yourself!”
He turned towards the door from which he had just emerged—turned to see his solicitor and his counsel coming out together. And his sudden anger died down, and his face relaxed to a smile of triumph.
“Now then!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t I tell you how it would be, a week since! Come on across to the Arms and I’ll stand a bottle—aye, two, three, if you like!—of the very best. Come on, both of you.”
The solicitor, glancing around, saw something of the state of affairs, hurriedly excused himself, and slipped back into the Town Hall by another entrance. But the barrister, a man who, great as his forensic abilities were, was one of those people who have no private reputation to lose, and of whom it was well known that he could never withstand the temptation to a bottle of champagne, assented readily, and with great good humour. And he and Cotherstone, arm in arm, walked down the steps and across the Market Place—and behind them the crowd sneered and laughed and indulged in audible remarks.
Cotherstone paid, or affected to pay, no heed. He steered his companion into the Arms, and turned into the great bow-windowed room which served as morning meeting-place for all the better class of loungers and townsmen in Highmarket. The room was full already. Men had come across from the court, and from the crowd outside; a babel of talk arose from every corner. But when Cotherstone and the well-known barrister (so famous in that circuit for his advocacy of criminals that he had acquired the nickname of the Felons’ Friend) entered, a dead silence fell, and men looked at this curious pair and then at each other with significant glances.
In that silence, Cotherstone, seizing a waiter, loudly demanded champagne and cigars: he glared defiantly around him as he supplemented the order with a command for the best box of cigars in the house, the best champagne in the cellars. A loud laugh from some corner of the room broke the silence, and the waiter, a shrewd fellow who saw how things were, gave Cotherstone a look.
“Come into the small parlour, Mr. Cotherstone,” he whispered. “Nobody in there—you’ll be more comfortable, sir.”
“All right, then,” responded Cotherstone. He glared once more at the company around him, and his defiance suddenly broke out in another fashion. “Any friend of mine that likes to join us,” he said pointedly, “is welcome. Who’s coming, like?”
There was another hoarse laugh at this, and most of the men there turned their backs on Cotherstone and began to talk loudly. But one or two of the less particular and baser sort, whom Cotherstone would certainly not have called friends a week before, nudged each other and made towards the door which the waiter held invitingly open—it was not every day that the best champagne and the best cigars were to be had for nothing, and if Cotherstone liked to fling his money about, what did it matter, so long as they benefited by his folly?
“That’s the style!” said Cotherstone, pushing the barrister along. “Bring two—bring three bottles,” he cried to the waiter. “Big ’uns!—and the best.”
An elderly man, one of Cotherstone’s fellow-members of the Corporation, came forward and caught him by the arm.
“Cotherstone!” he whispered. “Don’t be a fool! Think of what’s only just over. Go home, like a good fellow—go quietly home. You’re doing no good with this—you’ll have all the town talking!”
“Hang the town, and you too!” snapped Cotherstone. “You’re one of them that shouted at me in front of the Town Hall, curse you! I’ll let you and all Highmarket see what I care for you. What’s it to you if I have a quiet glass of wine with my friends?”
But there was no quiet drinking of a glass of wine in the parlour to which Cotherstone and his cronies retired. Whenever its door opened Cotherstone’s excited tones were heard in the big room, and the more sober-minded of the men who listened began to shake their heads.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked one. “Nobody ever knew him like this before! What’s he carrying on in that fashion for?”
“He’s excited with getting off,” said another. “And that bit of a scene outside there threw him off his balance. He should ha’ been taken straight home. Nice lot he’s got with him, too! We all know what yon barrister chap is—he can drink champagne like water, they say, and for the
