Richard Blackmore - Cripps, the Carrier - A Woodland Tale

"I can hear no more! You have lost no child – if you have, perhaps you could spare it. Tell me nothing – nothing more! But prove that it was my child!"

"Lord a' mercy, your Worship! Why, you are only fit to go to bed! Here, Mary! Mary! Mother Hookham! Curse the bell – I have broken it! Your master is taken very queer! Look alive, woman! Stir your stumps! A pot of hot water and a foot-tub! Don't get scared – he will be all right. I always carry a fleam with me. I can bleed him as well as any doctor. Hold his head up. Let me feel. Oh, he is not going to die just yet! Stop your caterwauling! There, I have relieved his veins. He will know us all in a minute again. He ought to have had a deal more spirit. I never could have expected this. I smoothed off everything so nicely – just as if it was a lady – "

"Did you, indeed! I have heard every word," said widow Hookham sternly. "You locked the door, or I would have had my ten nails in you long ago! Poor dear! What is a scum like you? And after all, what have you done, John Smith?"

On the very next day it was known throughout the parish and the neighbourhood that the ancient Squire had broken down at last, under the weight of anxieties. Nobody blamed him much for this, except his own sister and Mr. Smith. Mrs. Fermitage said that he ought to have shown more faith and resignation; and John Smith declared that all his plans were thrown out by this stupidity. What proper inquiry could be held, when the universal desire was to spare the feelings and respect the affliction of a poor old man?

Mr. Smith was right. An inquest truly must be held upon the body which had been found by the soldiers. But the Coroner, being a good old friend and admirer of the Oglanders, contrived that the matter should be a mere form, and the verdict an open nullity. Mr. Luke Sharp appeared, and in a dignified reserve was ready to represent the family. He said a few words, in the very best taste, and scarcely dared to hint at things which must be painful to everybody left alive to think of them. How the crush of tons of rock upon an unprotected female form had made it impossible to say – and how all the hair (which more than any other human gift survived the sad, sad change), having been cut off, was there no longer – and how there was really nothing except a pair of not over new silk stockings, belonging to a lady of lofty position in the county, and the widow of an eminent gentleman, but not required, he might hope, to present herself so painfully. Mr. Sharp could say no more; and the jury felt that he now must come, or, failing him, his son, Kit Sharp, into the £150,000 of "Port-wine Fermitage."

Therefore they returned the verdict carried in his pocket by them, "Death by misadventure of a young lady, name unknown." Their object was to satisfy the Squire and their consciences; and they found it wise, as it generally is, not to be too particular. And the Coroner was the last man to make any fuss about anything.

"Are you satisfied now, Mr. Overshute?" asked Lawyer Sharp, as Russel met him in the passage of the Quarry Arms, where the inquest had been taken. "The jury have done their best, at once to meet the facts of the case, and respect the feelings of the family."

"Satisfied! How can I be? Such a hocus-pocus I never knew. It is not for me to interfere, while things are in this wretched state. Everybody knows what an inquest is. No doubt you have done your duty, and acted according to your instructions. Come in here, where we can speak privately."

Mr. Sharp did not look quite as if he desired a private interview. However, he followed the young man with the best grace he could muster.

"I am going to speak quite calmly, and have no whip now for you to snap," said Russel, sitting down, as soon as he had set a chair for Mr. Sharp; "but may I ask you why you have done your utmost to prevent what seemed, to an ordinary mind, the first and most essential thing?"

"The identification? Yes, of course. Will you come and satisfy yourself? The key of the room is in my pocket."

"I cannot do it. I cannot do it," answered the young man, shuddering. "My last recollection must not be – "

"Young sir, I respect your feelings. And need I ask you, after that, whether I have done amiss in sparing the feelings of the family? And there is something more important than even that at stake just now. You know the poor Squire's sad condition. The poor old gentleman is pretty well broken down at last, I fear. What else could we expect of him? And the doctor his sister had brought from London says that his life hangs positively upon a thread of hope. Therefore we are telling him sad stories, or rather, I ought to say, happy stories; and though he is too sharp to swallow them all, they do him good, sir – they do him good."

"I can quite understand it. But how does that bear – I mean you could have misled him surely about the result of this inquest?"

"By no means. He would have insisted on seeing a copy of The Herald . In fact, if the jury could not have been managed, I had arranged with the editor to print a special copy giving the verdict as we wanted it. A pious fraud, of course; and so it is better to dispense with it. This verdict will set him up again upon his poor old legs, I hope. He seemed to dread the final blow so, and the bandying to and fro of his unfortunate daughter's name. I scarcely see why it should be so; but so it is, Mr. Overshute."

"Of course it is. How can you doubt it? How can it be otherwise? You can have no good blood in you – I beg your pardon, I speak rashly; but I did not mean to speak rudely. All I mean to say is that you need no more explain yourself. I seem to be always doubting you; and it always shows what a fool I am."

"Now, don't say that," Mr. Luke Sharp answered, with a fine and genial smile. "You are acknowledged to be the most rising member of the County Bench. But still, sir, still there is such a thing as going too far with acuteness, sir. You may not perceive it yet; but when you come to my age, you will own it."

"Truly. But who can be too suspicious, when such things are done as these? I tell you, Sharp, that I would give my head off my shoulders, this very instant, to know who has done this damned villainy! – this infernal – unnatural wrong, to my darling – to my darling!"

"Mr. Overshute, how can we tell that any wrong has been done to her?"

"No wrong to take her life! No wrong to cut off all her lovely hair, and to send it to her father! No wrong to leave us as we are, with nothing now to care for! You spoke like a sensible man just now – oh, don't think that I am excitable."

"Well, how can I think otherwise? But do me the justice to remember that I do not for one moment assert what everybody takes for granted. It seems too probable, and it cannot for the present at least be disproved, that here we have the sad finale of the poor young lady. But it must be borne in mind that, on the other hand, the body – "

"The thing could be settled in two minutes – Sharp, I have no patience with you!"

"So it appears; and, making due allowance, I am not vexed with you. You mean, of course, the interior garments, the nether clothing, and so on. There is not a clue afforded there. We have found no name on anything. The features and form, as I need not tell you – "

"I cannot bear to hear of that. Has any old servant of the family; has the family doctor – "

"All those measures were taken, of course. We had the two oldest servants. But the one was flurried out of her wits, and the other three-quarters frozen. And you know what a fellow old Splinters is, the crustiest of the crusty. He took it in bitter dudgeon that Sir Anthony had been sent for to see the poor old Squire. And all he would say was, 'Yes, yes, yes; you had better send for Sir Anthony. Perhaps he could bring – oh, of course he could bring – my poor little pet to life again!' Then we tried her aunt, Mrs. Fermitage, one of the last who had seen her living. But bless you, my dear sir, a team of horses would not have lugged her into the room. She cried, and shrieked, and fainted away."