He was just considering the advisability of crossing over to Sharpman
and suggesting to him that he was willing to drop the proceedings,
when that person called another witness to the stand. This was a
heavily built man, with close-cropped beard, bronzed face, and one
sleeve empty of its arm. He gave his name as William B. Merrick, and
said that he was conductor of the train that broke through the Cherry
Brook bridge, on the night of May 13, 1859.
"Did you see, on your train that night," asked Sharpman, "the witness
who has just left the stand?"
"I cannot be positive," the man replied, "but, to the best of my
recollection, the lady was a passenger in the rear car."
"With whom was she travelling?"
"With a gentleman whom I afterward learned was her husband, a little
boy some two or three years of age, and the child's nurse."
"Were there any other children on the train?"
"Yes, one, a boy of about the same age, riding in the same car in
company with an elderly gentleman."
"Did you see either of these children after the disaster?"
"I saw one of them."
"Which one?"
"I supposed, at the time, that it was the one who accompanied the old
gentleman."
"Why did you suppose so?"
"Because I saw a child who bore marks of having been in the wreck
riding in the car which carried the rescued passengers to the city,
and he was in company with an elderly man."
"Was he the same elderly man whom you saw with the child before the
accident?"
"I cannot say; my attention was not particularly called to him before
the accident; but I supposed he was the one, from the fact of his
having the child with him.
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