But the
great--the hottest part of the fight--occurred at that point of the
case, where Titmouse's descent from Stephen Dreddlington was sought to
be established. This gentleman, who had been a very wild person, whose
movements were very difficult to be traced or accounted for, had entered
the navy, and ultimately died at sea, as had always been imagined,
single and childless. It was proved, however, that so far from such
being the case, he had married a person at Portsmouth, of inferior
station, and that by her he had a daughter, only two years before his
death. Both mother and daughter, after undergoing great privation, and
no notice being taken of the mother by any of her late husband's family,
removed to the house of a humble and distant relative in Cumberland,
where the mother afterwards died, leaving her daughter only fifteen
years old. When she grew up, she lived in some menial capacity in
Cumberland, and ultimately married one Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse; who,
after living for some years a cordwainer at Whitehaven, found his way to
Grilston, in Yorkshire, in the neighborhood of which town he had lived
for some years in very humble circumstances. There he had married; and
about two years afterwards his wife died, leaving a son--our friend
Tittlebat Titmouse. Both of them afterwards came to London: where, in
four or five years' time, the father died, leaving the little Titmouse
to flutter and hop about in the wide world as best he could. During the
whole of this part of the case, Mr. Gammon had evinced deep anxiety; and
at a particular point--perhaps the crisis--his agitation was excessive;
yet it was almost entirely concealed by his remarkable self-control. The
little documentary evidence of which Gammon, at his first interview with
Titmouse, found him possessed, proved at the trial, as Gammon had
foreseen, of great importance. The evidence in support of this part of
the case, and which it took till two o'clock on the ensuing afternoon to
get through, was subjected to a most determined and skilful opposition
by the Attorney-General, but in vain. The case had been got up with the
utmost care, under the excellent management of Lynx; and Mr. Subtle's
consummate tact and ability brought it, at length, fully and distinctly
out before the jury.

"That, my Lord," said he, as he sat down after re-examining his last
witness, "is the case on the part of the plaintiff." On this the judge
and jury withdrew, for a short time,