"What do you mean, Dovey?"
"What do I mean! Ain"t my meaning plain? Do you own to having selled a box of pills to Hester Reed last winter?--be you thinking to eat that there fact, and deny of it? Come, Abel Crew!"
"I remember it well," readily spoke up Abel. "Mrs. Reed came here one day, complaining that her head ached continually, and her side often had a dull pain in it, and asked me to give her something. I did so; I gave her a box of pills. It was early in January, I think. I know there was ice on the ground."
"Then do you own to them pills," returned Dovey, more quietly, his fierceness subdued by Abel"s civility. "It were you that furnished "em?"
"I furnished the box of pills I speak of, that Hester Reed had from me in the winter. There"s no mistake about that."
"And made "em too?"
"Yes, and made them."
"Well, I"m glad to hear you say that; and now don"t you go for to eat your words later, Abel Crew. Our Ann, my wife, helped to give them there two pills to the children; and I"m not a-going to let her get into trouble over it. You"ve confessed to the pills, and I"m a witness."
"My pills did not kill the children, Dovey," said Abel, in a pleasant tone, resting his lame foot upon an opposite chair.
"Not kill "em?"
"No, that they did not. I"ve not made pills all these years to poison children at last."
"But what done it if the pills didn"t?"
"How can I say? "Twasn"t my pills."
"Dr. Duffham says it was the pills. And he----"
"Dr. Duffham says it was?"
"Reed telled me that the doctor asked outright, all in a flurry, what his wife had gave the babies, and she said she had gave "em nothing but them there two pills of Abel Crew"s. Duffham said the pills must have had poison in "em, and he asked for the box; and Hester Reed, she give him the box, and he sealed it up afore their eyes with his own seal."
Abel nodded. He knew that any suspected medicine must in such a case be sealed up.
"And now that I"ve got that there word from ye, I"ll say good-day to ye, neighbour, for I"ve left my forge to itself, and some red-hot iron in it. And I hope with all my heart and mind,"--the blacksmith turned round from the door to say more kindly, his good-nature cropping up again,--"that it"ll turn out it _warn"t_ the pills, but some"at else: our Ann won"t have no cause to be in a fright then." Which was as much as to say that Ann Dovey was frightened, you observe.
That same afternoon, going past the common, I saw Abel Crew in his garden, sitting against the cottage wall in the sun, his foot resting on a block of wood.
"How did it all happen, Abel?" I asked, turning in at the gate. "Did you give Mrs. Reed the wrong pills?"
"No, sir," he answered, "I gave her the right pills; the pills I make expressly for such complaints as hers. But if I had, in one sense, given her the wrong, they could not have brought about any ill effect such as this, for my pills are all innocent of poison."
"I should say it could not have been the pills that did the mischief, after all, then."
"You might swear it as well, Master Johnny, with perfect safety. What killed the poor children, I don"t pretend to know, but my pills never did. I tried to get down as far as Reed"s to inquire particulars, and found I could not walk. It was a bit of ill-luck, disabling myself just at this time."
"Shall you have to appear at the inquest to-morrow?"
He lifted his head quickly at the question--as though it surprised him.
Perhaps not having cast his thoughts that way.
"Is there to be an inquest, Master Johnny?"
"I heard so from old Jones. He has gone over to see the coroner."
"Well, I wish the investigation was all over and done with," said he.
"It makes me uneasy, though I know I am innocent."
Looking at him sitting there in the sun, at his beautiful face with its truthful eyes and its silver hair, it was next to impossible to believe he could be the author of the two children"s death. Only--the best of us are liable to mistakes, and sometimes make them. I said as much.
"_I_ made none, Master Johnny," was his answer. "When my pills come to be a.n.a.lyzed--as of course they must be--they will be found wholesome and innocent."
The inquest did not take place till the Friday. Old Jones had fixed it for the Thursday, but the coroner put it off to the next day. And by the time Friday morning dawned, opinion had veered round, and was strongly in favour of Abel Crew. All the parish had been to see him; and his protestations, that he had never in his life put any kind of poison into his medicines, made a great impression. The pills could not have been in fault, said everybody. Dr. Duffham might have sealed them up as a matter of precaution, but the mischief would not be found there.
In the middle of Church d.y.k.ely, next door to Perkins the butcher"s, stood the Silver Bear Inn; a better sort of public-house, kept by Henry Rimmer. It was there that the inquest was held. Henry Rimmer himself and Perkins the butcher were two of the jurymen. Dobbs the blacksmith was another. They all dressed themselves in their Sunday-going clothes to attend it. It was called for two in the afternoon; and soon after that hour the county coroner (who had dashed up to the Silver Bear in a fast gig, his clerk driving) and the jury trooped down to George Reed"s cottage and took a look at the two pale little faces lying there side by side. Then they went back again, and the proceedings began.
Of course as many spectators went crowding into the room as it would hold. Three or four chairs were there (besides those occupied by the jury at the table), and a bench stood against the wall. The bench was speedily fought for and filled; but Henry Rimmer"s brother, const.i.tuting himself master of the ceremonies, reserved the chairs for what he called the "big people," meaning those of importance in the place. The Squire was bowed into one; and to my surprise I had another. Why, I could not imagine, unless it was that they remembered I was the owner of George Reed"s cottage. But I did not like to sit down when so many older persons were standing, and I would not take the chair.
Some little time was occupied with preliminaries before what might be called the actual inquest set in. First of all, the coroner flew into a pa.s.sion because Abel Crew had not put in an appearance, asking old Jones if he supposed that was the way justice must be administered in England, and that he ought to have had Crew present. Old Jones who was in a regular fl.u.s.ter with it all, and his legs more gouty than ever, told the coroner, calling him "his worship," that he had understood Crew meant to be present. Upon which the coroner sharply answered that "understanding"
went for nothing, and Jones should know his business better.
However, in walked Abel Crew in the midst of the contest. His delayed arrival was caused by his difficulty in getting his damaged foot there; which had been accomplished by the help of a stick and somebody"s arm.
Abel had dressed himself in his black velvet suit; and as he took off his hat on entering and bowed respectfully to the coroner, I declare he could not be taken for anything but a courtly gentleman of the old school. n.o.body offered him a chair. I wished I had not given up mine: he should have had it.
Evidence was first tendered of the death of the children, and of the terrible pain they had died in. Duffham and a medical man, who was a stranger and had helped at the post-mortem, testified to a.r.s.enic being the cause of death. The next question was, how had it been administered?
A rumour arose in the room that the pills had been a.n.a.lyzed; but the result had not transpired. Every one could see a small paper parcel standing on the table before the coroner, and knew by its shape that it must contain the pill-box.
Hester Reed was called. She said (giving her evidence very quietly, just a sob and a sigh every now and then alone betraying what she felt) that she was the wife of George Reed. Her two little ones--twins, aged eleven months and a half--had been ailing for a day or two, seemed feverish, would not eat their food, were very cross at times and unnaturally still at others, and she came to the conclusion that their teeth must be plaguing them, and thought she would give them some mild physic. Mrs.
Todhetley, the Squire"s lady at d.y.k.e Manor, had called in on the Tuesday afternoon, and agreed with her that some mild physic----
"Confine your statement to what is evidence," interrupted the coroner, sternly.
Hester Reed, looking scared at the check, and perhaps not knowing what was evidence and what not, went on the best way she could. She and Ann Dovey--who had been neighbourly enough to look in and help her--had given the children a pill apiece in the evening after they were undressed, mashing the pill up in a little sugar and warm water. She then put them to bed upstairs and went to bed herself not long after. In the night she and her husband were awoke by the babies" screams, and they thought it must be convulsions. Her husband lighted the fire and ran for Dr. Duffham; but one had died before the doctor could get there, and the other died close upon it.
"What food had you given them during the day?" asked the coroner.
"Very little indeed, sir. They wouldn"t take it."
"What did the little that they did take consist of?"
"It were soaked bread, sir, with milk and some sprinkled sugar. I tried them with some potato mashed up in a spoonful o" broth at midday--we"d had a bit o" biled neck o" mutton for dinner--but they both turned from it."
"Then all they took that day was bread soaked in milk and sweetened with sugar?"
"Yes, it were, sir. But the bread was soaked in warm water and the milk and sugar was put in afterwards. "Twas but the veriest morsel they"d take, poor little dears!"
"Was the bread--and the milk--and the sugar, the same that the rest of your household used?"