black-beedles we gets here of a night, sir, you'd be fit to dance a
hornpipe, you would. The floor be covered with 'em."
"If the ceiling was covered with 'em too, I wouldn't have that there
dangerous stuff brought into the place--and so I've telled ye often,"
roared Dovey.
"It's frightful uncomfortable, is black-beedles; mother knows it," said
his wife, in a subdued voice--for Dovey in great things was master. "I
thought if I just sprinkled a bit on't down, it 'ud take 'em away, and
couldn't hurt nobody."
"And you went off on the sly that there Tuesday night and bought it," he
retorted; "and come back and telled me you had been to Reed's helping to
physic the babies."
"And so I had been there, helping to physic 'em."
"Did you go straight to Reed's from the shop--with this powder?" asked
Duffham.
"It was right at the bottom o' my pocket: I put it there as soon as Dame
Chad had served me with it," sobbed Ann Dovey. "And I can be upon my
Bible oath, Dr. Duffham, that I never touched it after; and I don't
believe it had then burst. A-coming hasty out of Reed's back-gate, for I
were in a hurry to get home, the pocket swung again' the post, and I
think the blue paper must ha' burst then. I never knowed it had burst,
for I'd never thought no more about the beedles till I put on the gownd
to go up to the inquest. Master Johnny, you be a-staring at me fearful,
but I'm telling nothing but the naked truth."
She did seem to be telling the truth. And as to my "staring at her
fearful," that was just her imagination. I was listening to the talk
from the elbow of the wooden chair, on which I had perched myself.
Duffham recommended Dovey to put the tin dish and its contents away
safely, so that it did not get near any food, but not to destroy the
stuff just yet. He talked a bit with Ann, left her a composing draught,
and came away.
"I don't see that the powder could have had anything to do with the
children's death," I said to him as we went along.
"Neither do I, Johnny!"
"Shall you have to declare this at the inquest to-morrow, Mr. Duffham?"
"I am sure I don't know," he answered, looking up at the sky through his
spectacles, just as a perplexed owl might do. "It might only serve to
complicate matters: and I don't think it's possible it could have been
the powder. On the other hand, if it be proved not to have been the
pills, we have only this poisonous powder to fall back upon. It is a
strange affair altogether, take it in all its bearings."
I did not answer. The evening star was beginning to show itself in the
sky.
"I must feel my way in this, Johnny: be guided by circumstances," he
resumed, when we halted at the stile that led across the fields to the
Manor. "We must watch the turn matters take to-morrow at the inquest.
Of course if I find it necessary to declare it, I shall declare it.
Meanwhile, lad, you had better not mention it to any one."
"All right, Mr. Duffham. Good-evening."
* * * * *
The jury went straggling into the Silver Bear by twos and threes. Up
dashed the coroner's gig, as before, he and his clerk seated side by
side. All the parish had collected about the doors, and were trying to
push into the inquest-room.
Gliding quietly in, before the proceedings were opened, came Abel Crew
in his quaint velvet suit, his silver hair gleaming in the sunlight, his
pale face calm as marble. The coroner ordered him to sit on a certain
chair, and whispered to old Jones. Upon which the constable turned his
gouty legs round, marched up, and stood guard over Crew, just as though
Abel were his prisoner.
"Do you see that, sir?" I whispered to Duffham.
"Yes, lad, and understand it. Crew's pills have been
analyzed--officially this time, as the jury put it--and found to contain
arsenic. Pettipher was right. The pills killed the children."
Well, you might have knocked me down with a feather. I had been fully
trusting in Crew's innocence.
About the first witness called, and sworn, was the professional man from
a distance who had analyzed the pills. He said that they contained
arsenic. Not in sufficient quantity to hurt a grown-up person; more than
sufficient to kill a little child. The coroner drew in his lips.
"I thought it must be so," he said, apparently for the benefit of
the jury. "Am I to understand that these were improper pills to send
out?--pills that no medical man would be likely to send?"
"Not improper at all, sir," replied the witness. "A medical man would
prescribe them for certain cases. Not for children: to an infant one
would be what it has been here--destruction."
I felt a nudge at my elbow, and turned to see the Squire's hot face
close to mine.
"Johnny, don't you ever stand up for that Crew again. He ought to be
hanged."
But the coroner, after a bit, seemed puzzled; or rather, doubtful. Led
to be so, perhaps, by a question put by one of the jury. It was Perkins
the butcher.
"If these pills were furnished by Abel Crew for Hester Reed, a growed
woman, and she went and gave one of her own accord to the two babies,
ought Crew to be held responsible for that?"
Upon which there ensued some cavilling. Some of the jury holding that he
was _not_ responsible; others that he was. The coroner reminded them of
what Hester Reed had stated in her evidence--that she had asked Crew's
opinion about the suitability of the pills for children, and he had told
her they were suitable.
Hester Reed was called. As the throng parted to make way for her to
advance, I saw Ann Dovey seated at the back of the room, looking more
dead than alive. Dovey stood by her, having made himself spruce for the
occasion. Ann would have gone off a mile in some opposite direction, but
old Jones's orders to all the witnesses of the former day, to appear
again, had been peremptory. They had been wanted before, he told them,
and might be wanted again.
"You need not look such a scarecrow with fright," I whispered in Ann
Dovey's ear, making my way to her side to reassure her, the woman was so
evidently miserable. "It was the pills that did the mischief, after
all--didn't you hear? Nothing need come out about your pocket and the
powder."
"Master Johnny, I'm just about skeered out o' my life, I am. Fit to go
and drown myself."
"Nonsense! It will be all right as far as you are concerned."
"I said it was Crew's pills, all along, I did; it couldn't have been
anything else, sir. All the same, I wish I was dead."
As good try to console a post, seemingly, as Ann Dovey. I went back to
my standing-place between the Squire and Duffham. Hester Reed was being
questioned then.
"Yes, sir, it were some weeks ago. My little boy was ailing, and I ran
out o' the house to Abel Crew, seeing the old gentleman go past the
gate, and asked whether I might give him one of them there same pills,
or whether it would hurt the child. Crew said I might give it freely; he
said two even wouldn't hurt him."
"And did you give the pill?" asked the coroner.
"No, sir. He's a rare bad one to give physic to, Gregory is, and I let
him get well without it."
"How old is he?"
"Turned of three, sir."
"You are absolutely certain, Mrs. Reed, that these pills, from which you
took out two to give the deceased children, were the very self-same
pills you had from Abel Crew?"
"I be sure and certain of it, sir. Nobody never put a finger upon the
box but me. It stood all the while in the corner o' the press-shelf in
the children's bedroom. Twice a week when I got upon a chair to dust
the shelf, I see it there. There was nobody in the house but me, except
the little ones. My husband don't concern himself with the places and
things."
Circumstantial evidence could not well go farther. Mrs. Reed was
dismissed, and the coroner told Abel Crew to come near the table. He
did as he was bid, and stood there upright and manly, a gentle look on
his face.
"You have heard the evidence, Abel Crew," said the coroner. "The pills
have been analyzed and found to contain a certain portion of arsenic--a
great deal more than enough to kill a child. What have you to say to
it?"
"Only this, sir; only what I said before. That the pills analyzed were
not my pills. The pills I gave to Mrs. Reed contained neither arsenic
nor any other poison."
"It is showing great obstinacy on your part to repeat that," returned
the coroner, impatiently. "Mrs. Reed swears that the pills were the same
pills; and she evidently speaks the truth."
"I am sure she thinks she speaks it," replied Abel, gently.
"Nevertheless, sir, I assure you she is mistaken. In some way the pills
must have been changed whilst in her possession, box and all."
"Why, man, in what manner do you suppose they could have been changed?"
"I don't know, sir. All I do know is, that the pills and the box
produced here last week were not, either of them, the pills and the box
she had from me. Never a box went out from me, sir, but had my private
mark on it--the mark I spoke of. Jones the constable searched my place
whilst I was detained in the lock-up, and took away all the pill-boxes
out of it. Let him testify whether he found one without the mark."
At this juncture a whole cargo of pill-boxes were shot out of a bag on
the table by old Jones, some empty, some filled with pills. The coroner
and jury began to examine them, and found the mark on all, lids and
boxes.
"And if you'd be so good as to cause the pills to be analyzed, sir, they
would be found perfectly free from poison," resumed Abel. "They are made
from herbs that possess healing properties, not irritant; a poisonous
herb, whether poisonous in itself, or one from which poison may be
extracted, I never plucked. Believe me, sir, for I am telling the truth;
the truth before Heaven."
The coroner said nothing for a minute or two: I think the words
impressed him. He began lifting the lid again from one or two of the
boxes.
"What are these pills for? All for the same disorder?"
"They were made up for different disorders, sir."
"And pray how do you distinguish them?"
"I cannot distinguish them now. They have been mixed. Even if returned
to me I could not use them. I have a piece of furniture at home, sir,
that I call my pill-case. It has various drawers in it, each drawer
being labelled with the sort of pills kept in it: camomile, dandelion,
and so on. Mr. Jones must be able to corroborate this."
Old Jones nodded. He had never seen nothing neater nor more exact in all
his life, than the keeping o' them there pills. He, Mr. Jones, had
tumbled the drawerfuls indiscriminately into his bag, and so mixed
them.
"And they will be so much loss to me," quietly observed Abel. "It does
not matter."
"Were you brought up to the medical profession?" cried the coroner--and
some of us thought he put the question in irony.
"No, sir," replied Abel, taking it seriously. "I have learnt the healing
art, as supplied by herbs and roots, and I know their value. Herbs will
cure sometimes where the regular doctor fails. I have myself cured cases
with them that the surgeons could not cure; cases that but for me, under
God, might never have been cured in this world. I make no boast of it;
any one else might do as much who had made herbs a study as I have."
"Are you making a fortune by it?" went on the coroner.
Abel shook his head.
"I have a small income of my own, sir, and it is enough for my simple
wants. What little money I make by my medicines, and honey, and that--it
is not much--I find uses for in other ways. I indulge in a new book now
and then; and there are many poor people around who need a bit of help
sometimes."
"You 'read' the stars, I am told, Abel Crew. What do you read in them?"
"The same that I read, sir, in all other of nature's works: God's
wonderful hand. His wisdom, His power, His providence."
Perhaps the coroner thought to bring Abel to ridicule in his replies:
if so, it was a mistake, for he seemed to be getting the worst of it
himself. At any rate, he quitted the subject abruptly, brushed his
energy up, and began talking to the jury.
The drift of the conversation was, so far as the room could hear
it, that Crew's pills, and only Crew's, could have been the authors
of the mischief to the two deceased children, whose bodies they were
sitting upon, and that Crew must be committed to take his trial for
manslaughter. "Hester Reed's evidence," he continued, "is so clear and
positive, that it quite puts aside any suspicion of the box of pills
having been changed----"
"The box had not my mark upon it, sir," respectfully spoke Abel Crew,
his tone anxious.
"Don't interrupt me," rebuked the coroner, sharply. "As to the box not
having what he calls his private mark upon it," he added to the jury,
"that in my opinion tells little. Because a man has put a mark on fifty
pill-boxes, he is not obliged to have put it on the fifty-first. An
unintentional omission is readily made. It appears to me----"
"Am I in time? Is it all over? Is Abel Crew found guilty?"
This unceremonious interruption to the official speech came from a
woman's voice. The door of the room was thrown open with a fling,
considerably discomposing those who had their backs against it and were
taken unawares, and they were pushed right and left by the struggles of
some one to get to the front. The coroner looked daggers; old Jones
lifted his staff; but the intruder forced her way forward with resolute
equanimity. Cathy Reed: we never remembered to call her Parrifer. Cathy
in her Sunday-going gown and a pink bonnet.
"How dare you?" cried the coroner. "What do you mean by this? Who are
you?"
"I have come rushing over from Tewkesbury to clear Abel Crew," returned
Cathy, recovering her breath after the fight. "The pills that killed the
children were my pills."
The commotion this avowal caused in the room was beyond describing. The
coroner stared, the jury all turned to look at the speaker, the crowd
trod upon one another.
"And sorry to my heart I am that it should have been so," went on Cathy.
"I loved those two dear little ones as if they were my own, and I'd
rather my pills had killed myself. Just look at that, please, Mr.
Coroner."
The ease with which Cathy spoke to the official gentleman, the coolness
with which she put down a pill-box on the green cloth before him, took
the room by surprise. As Ann Dovey remarked, later, "She must ha' learnt
that there manner in her travels with young Parrifer."
"What is this?" questioned the coroner, curtly, picking up the box.
"Perhaps you'll ask Mr. Crew whether he knows it, sir, before I say what
it is," returned Cathy.
The coroner had opened it. It contained seven pills; just the size of
the other pills, and looking exactly like them. On the lid and on the
box was the private mark spoken of by Abel Crew.
"That is my box, sir; and these--I am certain of it--are my pills,"
spoke Abel, earnestly, bending over the shoulder of the first juryman to
look into the box. "The box and the pills that I gave to Mrs. Reed."
"And so they are, Abel Crew," rejoined Cathy, emphatically. "The week
before last, which I was spending at home at father's, I changed the
one pill-box for the other, inadvertent, you see"--with a nod to the
coroner--"and took the wrong box away with me. And I wish both boxes
had been in the sea before I'd done it."
Cathy was ordered to give her account more clearly, and did so. She
had been suffering from illness, accompanied by neuralgia, and a
doctor at Tewkesbury had prescribed some pills for it, one to be taken
occasionally. The chemist who made them up told her they contained
arsenic. He was about to write the directions on the box, when Cathy,
who was in a hurry, snatched it from him, saying she could not wait for
that bother, flung down the money, and departed. This box of pills she
had brought with her on her visit to her father's, lest she should find
occasion to take one; and she had put it on the shelf of the press, side
by side with the other pill-box, to be out of the way of the children.
Upon leaving, she took up the wrong box inadvertently: carrying away
Abel Crew's pills, leaving her own. There lay the explanation of the
mystery of the fatal mistake. Mrs. Reed had not known that Cathy had any
pills with her; the girl, who was just as light-headed as ever, not
having chanced to mention it; and Cathy had the grace to dust the room
herself whilst she was there.
"When father and his wife sent me word about the death of the two little
twins, and that it was some pills of Abel Crew's that had done it, I
never once thought o' my pills," added Cathy. "They didn't as much as
come into my head. But late last night I got lent to me last Saturday's
_Worcester Herald_, and there I read the inquest, and what Crew had said
about the marks he put on his pill-boxes, and mother's evidence about
never having shifted the pill-box from its place on the press. 'Sure and
I couldn't have changed the boxes,' thought I to myself; and upstairs I
ran in a fright to look at the box I had brought away. Yes, there it
was--Abel Crew's box with the marks on it; and I knew then that I had
left my own pills at home here, and that they had killed the babies. As
soon as I could get away this morning--which was not as soon as I wanted
to--I started to come over. And that's the history--and the blessed
truth."
Of course it was the truth. Abel's beautiful face had a glow upon it.
"I knew I should be cleared in God's good time," he breathed. The Squire
pounced upon him, and shook both his hands as if he would never let them
go again. Duffham held out his.
So that was the end of the story. Cathy was reprimanded by the coroner
for her carelessness, and burst into tears in his face.
"And thee come off home wi' thee, and see me chuck that there powder
into the fire; and don't go making a spectacle o' th' self again," cried
Dovey, sharply, in his wife's ear. "Thee just let me catch thee bringing
in more o' the dratted stuff; that's all."
"I shall never look at a black-beedle again, Jack, without shivering,"
she answered; going in for a slight instalment of shivering there and
then. "It might ha' come to hanging. Leastways, that's what I've been
dreaming of."
V.
ROBERT ASHTON'S WEDDING-DAY.
The hall-clock was striking half-past five as we went out into the
sharp night-air: Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley, I, and Tod. We were spending
Christmas that year at Crabb Cot. Old Coney's dinner was fixed for six:
but country people don't observe the fashion of dashing in at the last
stroke of the hour. The weather was cold, and no mistake; the snow lay
on the ground; the stars shone like silver. This was Tuesday, New Year's
Day; and to-morrow, the second of January, Jane Coney would be married
to Robert Ashton of Timberdale. The Ashtons were to dine to-night at the
Farm, and we had been asked to meet them. If every one stood upon his
own level, we should shoot up some degrees over the Coneys' heads in the
scale of the world's ladder; for old Coney was only a plain farmer; and
you've learnt by this time what the Squire was. But the Coneys were
right-down good people, and made the best neighbours in the world.
We had only to cross the road slantwise, and old Coney had had it swept
for us. It was an old-fashioned farm-house, full of nooks and angles,
with one ugly, big room in it, oak-panelled. The cloth was laid there
for to-night, the breakfast would be for the morrow. Old Coney and Mrs.
Coney came out of the drawing-room to meet us: that was small and snug,
with a running pattern of pale roses on its white-watered walls. He was
jolly; she, plain, homely, and sensible.
Jane was quiet, like her mother; very well she looked, standing on the
carpet in her pretty blue silk dress. Her brother Tom, a tall, strong
young fellow with a red face, lifted her out of the way by the waist,
that he might shake hands all round. The eldest daughter, Mary West, was
staying there with her nurse and baby; she looked ill, and got up only
for a minute from her chair by the fire. Her husband was a lawyer, in
practice at Worcester. Another young lady was sitting near, with light
frizzed hair: Mrs. James Ashton.
Before we had settled down, wheels were heard. It was Robert Ashton's
dog-cart, bringing his two brothers, Charles and James; and Mary West's
husband. Miss Jane's cheeks turned as red as a rose for nothing: Robert
Ashton had not come with them.
I had better say who the Ashtons were. Old Ashton (the father) had
lived at Timberdale Court always. It was one of the best farms in all
Worcestershire. Old Ashton lived in good style, educated his children,
and started them well in life. Lucy, the only girl, married a Captain
Bird, who turned out to be a frightful scamp. Robert remained on the
farm with his father; Charles was a clergyman; James a doctor in
Worcester. Everybody respected Mr. Ashton. It was about three years
now since he died, and he left a good pot of money behind him. Robert
succeeded to the farm, and it was he who was to marry Jane Coney
to-morrow.
They went upstairs with their carpet-bags, having come direct from
Worcester by train; Robert Ashton's dog-cart had been waiting, as
arranged, at Timberdale Station to bring them on. Mrs. James Ashton came
over earlier in the day with Mrs. West. Robert and Charles Ashton were
both fine young men, but the doctor was slight and short. Now I hope all
that's clear; because it was necessary to say it.
What with talking and looking at the presents, the time passed. They
were laid out on a table against the wall, on a snow-white damask cloth
of rare beauty.
"Look here," whispered Mrs. Coney, taking up a scented blue-and-white
case of satin ribbon and beads for holding pocket-handkerchiefs. "Poor
Lucy Bird sent this. She must have made it herself, a thing like this,
bought, would be as much as fifteen or sixteen shillings. It came almost
anonymously: 'With best love and ever kind wishes for Robert and Jane,'
written on it; but we knew Lucy's handwriting."
"Where are they now?" asked Mrs. Todhetley, in the same mysterious
whisper.
"I fancy they are staying somewhere in Worcester. We should have liked
to have Lucy over for the wedding; but--you know how it is: we could not
ask him."
Mrs. Todhetley nodded. She wore her grey silk gown that night, which
always seemed to make her look taller and thinner than ever, and a white
lace cap with pink ribbons. A pink bow was in her light hair, and she
had put on her beautiful earrings.
There is some thorn in most families, and Lucy was the one in that of
Ashton. She was educated at the best school in Worcester, and came home
at eighteen brimful of romance. It lay in her nature. You'd hardly have
found so pretty and sentimental a girl in the county. Because her name
was Lucy Ashton, she identified herself with Scott's Lucy Ashton, and
looked out for a Master of Ravenswood. These sentimental girls sometimes
come to grief, for they possess only three parts of their share of plain
common-sense. The Master of Ravenswood came in the shape of Captain
Bird, a tall, dark man, with a flaming coat and fierce moustache. He
paid court to Lucy, and she fell in love with him before a week was
over. The Ashtons turned their backs upon him: there was something
in the man they did not like, in spite of the red coat and the black
moustache. But he won Lucy over--he had heard of her fortune, you
see--and she promised to marry him. She was a gentle, yielding, timid
girl then; but her love was strong, and she ran away. She ran away and
was married the same morning at St. Helen's church in Worcester, in
which parish Bird had been staying. It was the talk of the county; but
when the commotion had subsided, every one began to pity Lucy, saying
she would have plenty of time and cause for repentance. After all, he
was not a real captain now. He had sold out of the army; and there arose
a rumour that he had done something wrong and was obliged to sell out.
Mr. Ashton had loved Lucy better than all his children. He forgave the
marriage for Lucy's sake, and had them home on a visit, and presented
her with a handsome sum. But he made a great mistake--I've heard the
Squire say it often--in not settling it upon her. Bird spent it as soon
as he well could; and he would have spent some more that came to Lucy
when her father died, only that it was left in Robert Ashton's hands to
be paid to her quarterly. People called Bird a blackleg: said he was
about the worst man that ever stepped. Robert had offered Lucy a home at
Timberdale Court, but she would not leave her husband: she had married
him, she said, for better or worse. If he came to be transported--and he
was going on for it--the chances were that Lucy would follow him to Van
Diemen's Land.
"I say, there's six o'clock!" exclaimed Mr. Coney, as the hour struck.
"Jane, what have you done with Robert?"