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CHAPTER XXIII

It will have been perceived already that the coroner was by no means “the right man in the right place”. The legal firm, “Cole, Cole, and Son”, had been known in Southampton for many years, as doing a large and very respectable business. The present Mr. Cole, the coroner, who had been the “Son” in the partnership, became sole owner suddenly by the death of his father and uncle. Having brains enough to know that he was far from having too much, he took at once into partnership with him an uncommonly wide–awake, wary fellow, who had been head–clerk to the old firm, ever biding his time for this inevitable result. So now the firm was thriving under the style and title of “Cole, Chope, and Co”., Mr. Chope being known far and wide by the nickname of “Coleʼs brains”. Mr. Cole being appointed coroner, not many months ago, and knowing very little about his duties, took good care for a time not to attempt their discharge without having “Coleʼs brains” with him. But this had been found to interfere so sadly with private practice, that little by little Cole plucked up courage, as the novelty of the thing wore off, and now was accustomed to play the coroner without the assistance of brains. Nevertheless, upon an occasion so important as this, he would have come with full cerebrum, but that Chope was gone for his holiday. Mr. Cole, however, was an honest man – which could scarcely be said of his partner – and meant to do his duty, so far as he could see it. In the present inquiry he had less chance of seeing it than usual, for he stood in great awe of Mr. Brockwood, a man of ability and high standing, who, as Sir Cradock Nowellʼs solicitor, attended to watch the case, at the suggestion of Rufus Hutton.

Both the guns were produced to the coroner, in the condition in which they were found, except that John Rosedew, for safetyʼs sake, had lowered the right hammer of Claytonʼs to the half–cock, before he concealed it from Cradock. Cradockʼs own unlucky piece had been found, on the following morning, in a rushy pool, where he had cast it, as he fled so wildly. Both the barrels had been discharged, while both of Claytonʼs were loaded. It went to the heart of every man there who could not think Cradock a murderer, when in reply to a jurymanʼs question, what was the meaning of certain lines marked with a watch–spring file on the trigger–plate of his gun, it was explained that the twins so registered the number and kind of the seasonʼs game.

After this, Mark Stote was called, and came forward very awkwardly with a deal of wet on his velveteen cuffs, which he tried to keep from notice. His eyes were fixed upon the coroner, with a kind of defiance, but even while he was kissing the book, he was glad to sniff behind it.

“Mr. Mark Stote”, said the coroner, duly prompted, “you have, I believe, been employed to examine the scene of this lamentable occurrence”?

Mark Stote took a minute to understand this, and a minute to consider his answer.

“Yees, my lard, I throwed a squoyle at ’un”.

The representative of the Crown looked at Mark with amazement equal at least to that with which Mark was regarding him.

“Gentlemen”, asked Mr. Cole, addressing the court in general, “what language does this man talk”?

“West Saxon”, replied Mr. Brockwood, speaking apart to the coroner; “West Saxon of the forest. He can talk plain English generally, but whenever these people are nervous, they fall back unconsciously upon their native idiom. You will never be able to understand him: shall I act as interpreter”?

“With all my heart; that is to say, with the consent of the jury. But what – I mean to say, how – ”

“How am I to be checked, you mean, unless I am put upon oath; and how can you enter it as evidence? Simply thus – let your clerk take down the original answers. All the jury will understand them, and so, perhaps, will he”.

The clerk, who was a fine young gentleman, strongly pronounced in attire, nodded a distinct disclaimer. It would be so unaristocratic to understand any peasant–tongue.

“At any rate, most of the magistrates do. There are plenty of checks upon me. But I am not ambitious of the office. Appoint any one you please”.

“Gentlemen of the jury”, said the coroner, glad to shift from himself the smallest responsibility, “are you content that Mr. Brockwood should do as he has offered”?

“Certain, and most kind of him”, replied the jury, all speaking at once, “if his honour was unable to understand old English”.

“Very good”, said Mr. Brockwood; “donʼt let us make a fuss about nothing. Mr. Stote says he ‘throwed a squoyle;’ that is to say, he looked at it”.

“And in what state did you find the ground”? was the coronerʼs next question.

“Twearable, twearable. Dwont ’e ax ov me vor gude now, dwont ’e”. And he put up his broad hand before his broad face.

“Terrible, terrible”, said the coroner, going by the light of nature in his interpretation; “but I do not mean the exact spot only where the body was found. I mean, how was the ground as regards dry and wet, for the purpose of retaining footmarks”?

“Thar a bin zome rick–rack wather, ’bout a sannit back. But most peart on it ave a droud up agin. ’Twur starky, my lard, moor nor stoachy”. Here Mark felt that he had described things lucidly and powerfully, and looked round the room for approval.

“Stiff rather than muddy, he means”, explained Mr. Brockwood, smiling at the coronerʼs dismay.

“Were there any footprints upon it, in the part where the ground could retain them”?

“ʼTwur dounted and full of stabbles, in the pearts whur the mulloch wur, but the main of ’un tuffets and stramots”.

“That is to say”, Mr. Brockwood translated, “the ground was full of impressions and footmarks, where there was any dirt to retain them; but most of the ground was hillocky and grassy, and so would take no footprints”.

“When you were searching, did you find anything that seemed to have been overlooked”?

“Yees, my lard, I vound thissom” – producing Cradʼs stubby meerschaum – “and thissom” – a burnt felt–wad – “and a whaile vurther, ai vound thissom”. Here he slowly drew from his pocket a very fine woodcock, though not over fat, with its long bill tucked most carefully under its wing. He stroked the dead bird softly, and set its feathers professionally, but did not hand it about, as the court seemed to anticipate.

“In what part, and from what direction, has that bird been shot”?

“Ramhard of the head, my lard, as clane athert shat, and as vaine a bird as iver I wish to zee. But, ahʼs me, her be a wosebird, a wosebird, if iver wur wan”.

Mark could scarcely control his tears, as he thought of the birdʼs evil omen, and yet he could not help admiring him. He turned him over and over again, and dropped a tear into his tail coverts. Mr. Brockwood saw it and gave him time; he knew that for many generations the Stotes had lived under the Nowells.

“Oh, the bird was shot, you say, on the right side of the head, and clean through the head”.

“Thank you”, proceeded the coroner. “Now, do you think that he could have moved after he touched the ground”?

“Nivir a hinch, I allow, my lard. A vell as dead as a stwoun”.

“Now inform the court, as nearly as you can, of the precise spot where you found it”.

It took a long time to discover this, for Mr. Stote had not been taught the rudiments of topography. Nevertheless, they made out at last that the woodcock had been found, dead on his back, with his bill up, eight or ten yards beyond the place where Clayton Nowell fell dead, and in a direct line over his body from the gap in the hedge where Cradock stood. Dr. Hutton must have found the bird, if he had searched a little further.

“Now”, said the coroner, forcibly. “Mr. Stote, I will ask you a question which is, perhaps, a little beyond the rules of ordinary evidence, I mean, at least, as permitted in a court of record” – here he glanced at the magistrates, who could not claim the rank of record – “which of these two unfortunate brothers caused, in your opinion, the death of – of that woodcock”?

Mr. Brockwood glanced at the coroner sharply, and so did his own clerk. Even the jury knew, by intuition, that he had no right to tout for opinions.

“Them crink–crank words is beyand me. Moy head be awl wivvery wi’ ’em, zame as if my old ooman was patchy”.

“His honour asks you”, said Mr. Brockwood, with a glance not lost on the justices – for it meant, You see how we court inquiry, though the question is quite inadmissible – “which of the brothers in your opinion shot the bird which you found”?

“Why, Meester Cradock, o’ course. Meester Cleaton ’ud needs a blowed un awl to hame, where a stwooud”.

“Mr. Clayton must have blown him to pieces, if he shot him from the place where he stood, at least from the place where Mr. Clayton fell. And poor Mr. Clayton lay directly between his brother and the woodcock”?

Mr. Brockwood in his excitement forgot that he had no right to put this question, nor, indeed, any other, except as formally representing some one formally implicated. But the coroner did not check him.

“By whur the blude wor, a moost have been naigh as cud be atwane the vern–patch and the wosebird”.

“Very good. That fern–patch was the place where Mr. Cradock dropped from the gap in the hedge. Mr. Rosedew has proved that. Now let us have all you know, Mark Stote. Did you see any other marks, stabbles you call them, not, I mean, in the path Mr. Rosedew came along, nor yet in the patches of thicket through which poor Cradock fled, but in some other direction”?

This was the very question the coroner ought to have put long ago. Thus much he knew when Brockwood put it, and now he was angry accordingly.

“Mr. Brockwood, I will thank you – consider, sir, this is a court of record”!

“Then donʼt let it record stupid humbug”! Mr. Brockwood was a passionate man, and his blood was up. “I will take the responsibility of anything I do. All we want to elicit the truth is a little skill and patience; and for want of that the finest young fellow I have ever known may be blasted for life, for this world and the other. Excuse me, Mr. Coroner, I have spoken precipitately; I have much reverence for your court, but far more for truth”.

Here Mr. Brockwood sat down again, and all the magistrates looked at him with nods of approbation. Human passions and human warmth are sure to have their way, even in Areopagus. At last the question was put by the coroner himself. Of course it was a proper one.

“Yees, I zeed wan”, said Mark Stote, scratching the back of his head (where at least the memory ought to be); “but a wadnʼt of no ’count much”.

“Now tell us where that one was”.

“Homezide of the rue, avore you coams to them hoar–witheys, naigh whur the bower–stone stanneth. ’Twur zumbawdy yaping about mebbe after nuts as had lanced fro’ the rue auver the water–tabble”.

Before this could be translated, a great stir was heard in the outer–room, a number of people crying “Donʼt ’ee–now”! and a hoarse voice uttering “I will”. The coroner was just dismissing Mr. Stote with deep relief to both of them, and each the more respecting because he could not understand the other.

“Mark Stote, you have given your evidence in a most lucid manner. There are few people more to be respected than the thorough Saxon gamekeeper”.

“Moy un goo, my lard”? asked the patient Mark, with his neck quite stiff, as he at first had stuck it, and one eye cocked at the coroner, as along the bridge of a fowling–piece.

“Mr. Stote, you may now depart. Your evidence does you the greatest credit, both as the father of a family, and as – as a conservator of game, and I may say – ah, yes – as a faithful family retainer”.

“Thank ’ee, my lard, and vor my peart I dwoanʼt bʼleeve now as you manes all the ’arm as most volks says of ’ee”.

Mark was louting low, trying to remember the fashion they taught him forty years since in the Sunday–school, when the door flew back, and the cold wind entered, and in walked Cradock Nowell.

As regards the outer man, one may change in fifty ways in half of fifty hornʼs. Villainous ague, want of sleep, violent attacks of bile, inferior claret, love rejected, scarlet fever, small–pox, any of these may make a man lose memory in the looking–glass; but all combined could not have wrought such havoc, such appalment, such drought in the fountains of the blood, as that young face now told of. There was not one line of it like the face of Cradock Nowell. It struck the people with dismay, as they made room and let him pass; it would have struck the Roman senate, even with Cato speaking. Times there are when we forget even our sense of humour, absorbed in the power of passion, and the rush of our souls along with it. No one in that room could have laughed at the best joke ever was made, while he looked at Cradock Nowell.

Utterly unconscious what any fellow thought of him (except perhaps in some under–current of electric sympathy, whose wires never can be cut, up to the drop of the gallows), Cradock crossed the chairs and benches, feeling them no more than the wind feels the hills it crosses. Yet with the inbred courtesy of natureʼs thorough gentleman, though he forgot all the people there as thinking of himself, he did not yet forget himself as bound to think of them. He touched no man on leg or elbow, be he baronet or cobbler, without apologizing to him. Then he stood in the foremost place, looking at the coroner, saying nothing, but ready to be arraigned of anything.

Mr. Cole had never yet so acutely felt the loss of his “brains”; and yet it is likely that even Chope would have doubted how to manage it. The time a man of the world might pass in a dozen common–places, passed over many shrewd heads there, and none knew what to say. Cradockʼs deep grey eyes, grown lighter by the change of health, and larger from the misery, seemed to take in every one who had any feeling for him.

“Here I am, and cannot be hurt, more than my own soul has hurt me. Charge me with murder if you please, I never can disprove it. Reputation is a thing my God thinks needless for me; and so it is, in the despair which He has sent upon me”.

Not a word of this he spoke, but his eyes said every word of it, to those who have looked on men in trouble, and heard the labouring heart. As usual, the shallowest man there was the first to speak.

“Mr. Nowell”, asked the coroner, blandly, as of a wealthy client, “am I to understand, sir, that you come to tender your evidence”?

“Yes”, replied Cradock. His throat was tight, and he could not manage to say much.

“Then, sir, I am bound to administer to you the caution usual on these occasions. Excuse me; in fact, I know you will; but your present deposition may be – I mean it is possible – ”

“Sir, I care for nothing now. I am here to speak the truth”.

“Very laudable. Admirable! Gentlemen of the jury – Mr. Brockwood, perhaps you will oblige the court by examining in chief”?

“No, your honour, I cannot do that; it would be a confusion of duties”.

“I will not be examined”, said Cradock, with a low hoarse voice; he had been in the woods for a day and two nights, and of course had taken cold, – “I donʼt think I could stand it. A woman who gave me some bread this morning told me what you were doing, and I came here as fast as I could, to tell you all I know. Let me do it, if you please, in the best way I can; and then do what you like with me”.

The utter despair of those last words went cold to the heart of every one, and Mark Stote burst out crying so loud that a woman lent him her handkerchief. But Cradockʼs eyes were hard as flint, and the variety of their gaze was gone.

The coroner hesitated a little, and whispered to his clerk. Then he said with some relief, and a look of kindness —

“The court is ready, Mr. Nowell, to receive your statement. Only you must make it upon oath”.

Cradock, being duly sworn, told all he knew, as follows:

“It had been agreed between us, that my – my dear brother should go alone to look for a woodcock, which he had seen that day. I was to follow in about an hour, and meet him in the spire–bed just outside the covert. For reasons of my own, I did not mean to shoot at all, only to meet my brother, hear how he had got on, and come home with him. However, I took my gun, because my dog was going with me, and I loaded it from habit. Things had happened that afternoon which had rather upset me, and my thoughts were running upon them. When I got to the spire–bed, there was no one there, although it was quite dusk; but I thought I heard my brother shooting inside the Coffin Wood. So I climbed the hedge, with my gun half–cocked, and called him by his name”.

Here Cradock broke down fairly, as the thought came over him that henceforth he might call and call, but none would ever answer.

“By what name did you call him”? Mr. Brockwood looked at the coroner angrily. What difference could it make?

“I called, ‘Viley, Viley, my boy!’ three times, at the top of my voice. I used to call him so in the nursery, and he always liked it. I canʼt make out why he did not answer, for he must have been close by – though the bushes were very thick, certainly. At that instant, before I had time to jump down into the covert, a woodcock, flushed, perhaps, by the sound of my voice, crossed a little clearing not thirty yards in front of me. I forgot all about my determination not to shoot that day, cocked both barrels in a moment, but missed him clean with the first, because a branch of the hedge flew back and jerked the muzzle sharply. But the bird was flying rather slowly, and I got a second shot at him, as he crossed a little path in the copse, too narrow to be called a ride. I felt quite sure that I shot straight at him, and I thought I saw him fall; but the light was very bad, and the trees were very thick, and he gave one of those flapping jerks at the moment I pulled the trigger, so perhaps I missed him”.

“That ’ee doednʼt, Meester Craydock. Aiʼse larned ’ee a bit too much for thic. What do ’ee call thissom”? Here he held up the woodcock. “Meester Craydock, my lard, be the sprackest shat anywhur round these pearts”.

Poor Mark knew not that in his anxiety to vindicate his favouriteʼs skill, he was making the case more black for him.

“Mark Stote, no more interruptions, if you please”, exclaimed the coroner; “Mr. Nowell, pray proceed”.

“Dwoanʼt ’ee be haish upon un, my lard, dwoanʼt ’ee vaind un guilty. A coodnʼt no how ’ave doed it. A wor that naice and pertiklar, a woodnʼt shat iven toard a gipsy bwoy. And his oyes be as sprack as a merlinʼs. A cood zee droo a mokpieʼs neestie”.

Cradockʼs face, so pale and haggard but a minute before, was now of a burning red. The jury looked at him with astonishment, and each, according to his bias, put his construction upon the change. Two of them thought it was conscious guilt; the rest believed it to be indignation at the idea of being found guilty. It was neither; it was hope. The flash and flush of sudden hope, leaping across the heart, like a rocket over the sea of despair. He could not speak, but gasped in vain, then glutched (to use a forest word, which means gulped down a sob), and fell back into John Rosedewʼs arms, faint, and stark, and rigid.

The process of his mind which led him to the shores of light – but only for a little glimpse, a glimpse and then all dark again – was somewhat on this wise: “Only a bullet, or balled cartridge, at the distance I was from him, could have killed my darling Viley on the spot, as I saw him dead, with the hole cut through him. I am almost sure that my cartridge was in the left barrel of the gun, where I always put it. And now it is clear that the left barrel killed that unlucky bird, and killed him with shot flying separate, so the cartridge must have opened. Viley, too, was ten feet under the height the bird was flying. I donʼt believe that I hit him at all. I had loose shot in my right barrel; the one that sent so random, on account of the branch that struck it. I am almost sure I had, and I fired quite straight with the left barrel. God is good, the great God is merciful, after all I thought of Him”. No wonder that he fainted away, in the sudden reaction.

There is no need to dwell any longer on the misery of that inquest. The principal evidence has been given. The place where Cradock stood in the hedge, and the place where Clayton fell and died; how poor Cradock saw him first, in the very act of jumping, and hung like a nut–shuck, paralysed; how he ran back to his dead twin–brother and could not believe in his death, and went through the woods like a madman, with nothing warm about him except his brotherʼs blood, – all this, I think, is clear enough, as it had long been to the jury, and now was to the coroner. Only Cradock awoke from his hope – what did he care for their verdict? He awoke from his hope not in his moral – that there could be no doubt of – but in his manual innocence; when, to face all circumstances, he had nothing but weak habit. He could not swear, he could not even feel confident (and we want three times three for swearing, that barbarous institution) that he had rammed the cartridge down the left barrel, and the charge of shot down the right. All he could say was this, that it was a very odd thing if he had not.

The oddity of a thing is seldom enough to establish its contrary, in the teeth of all evidence. So the jury found that “Violet Clayton Nowell had died from a gunshot wound, inflicted accidentally by his brother Cradock Nowell, whom, after careful consideration, they absolved from all blame”.