The coroner's jury, for that end empanelled, attentively considering the circumstances which surrounded the last end of Edmund Plantagenet, late of Chiddingwick, Surrey, had more especially to inquire into the question whether or not deceased at the time he met with his sudden death was perfectly sober. Deceased, it seemed, was father of Mr. Richard Plantagenet, of Durham College, who identified the body. On the night of the accident the unfortunate gentleman had dined at his own lodgings in Grove Street, and afterwards went round to take a glass of wine at Mr. T. M. Faussett's rooms in Durham. Mr. Faussett testified that deceased when he left loose rooms was perfectly sober. Mr. Trevor Gillingham, with, the other undergraduates and the college porter, unanimously bore witness to the same effect. Persons in St. Aldate's who had seen deceased on his way to Folly Bridge corroborated this evidence as to sobriety of demeanour. Deceased, though apparently preoccupied, walked as straight as an arrow. On the whole, the coroner considered, all the circumstances seemed to show that Mr. Edmund Plantagenet, who was not a man given to early hours, had strolled off for an evening walk by the river bank to cool himself after dinner, and had slipped and fallen--being a heavy man--owing to the flooded and dangerous state of the tow-path. Jury returned a verdict in accordance with the evidence--accidental death--with a rider suggesting that the Conservators should widen and extend the tow-path. But Trevor Gillingham, meeting Faussett in quad after Hall that evening, observed to him confidentially in a very low voice: 'By Jove, old man, we've had a precious narrow squeak of it! I only hope the others will be discreetly silent. We might all have got sent down in a lump together for our parts in this curious little family drama. But all's well that end's well, as the Immortal One has it. Might make a capital scene, don't you know, some day--in one of my future tragedies.' CHAPTER XIII. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR. |His father's death put Dick at once in a very different position from the one he had previously occupied. It was a family revolution. And on the very evening of the funeral, that poor shabby funeral, Dick began then and there to think the future over.