Cornish Characters and Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Cornish Characters and Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography; Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
A farmer returning from market somewhat later to Wadebridge saw a grey
horse in the road, saddled and bridled, but without a rider. He tried at
first to overtake it, but the horse struck into a gallop and he gave up
the chase; his curiosity was, however, excited, and upon meeting some
men on the road, and making inquiry, they told him that they thought
that the grey horse that had just gone by them belonged to Mr. Norway.
This induced him to call at the house of that gentleman, and he found
the grey steed standing at the stable gate. The servants were called
out, and spots of blood were found upon the saddle. A surgeon was
immediately summoned, and two of the domestics sallied forth on the
Bodmin road, in quest of their master. The search was not successful
that night, but later, one of the searchers perceiving something white
in the little stream of water that runs beside the highway and enters
the river Allen at Pendavey Bridge, they examined it, and found the body
of their unfortunate master, lying on his back in the stream, with his
feet towards the road, and what they had seen glimmering in the
uncertain light was his shirt frill. He was quite dead.
The body was at once placed on the horse and conveyed home, where the
surgeon, named Tickell, proceeded to examine it. He found that the
deceased had received injuries about the face and head, produced by
heavy and repeated blows from some blunt instrument, which had
undoubtedly been the cause of death. A wound was discovered under the
chin, into which it appeared as if some powder had been carried; and
the bones of the nose, the forehead, the left side of the head and the
back of the skull were frightfully fractured.
An immediate examination of the spot ensued when the body had been
found, and on the left-hand side of the road was seen a pool of
blood, from which to the rivulet opposite was a track produced by the
drawing of a heavy body across the way, and footsteps were observed as
of more than one person in the mud, and it was further noticed that
the boots of those there impressed must have been heavy. There had
apparently been a desperate scuffle before Mr. Norway had been killed.
[Illustration: NEVILL NORWAY
_From a painting in the possession of Miss A. T. Norway_]
There was further evidence. Two sets of footmarks could be traced of
men pacing up and down behind a hedge in an orchard attached to an
uninhabited house hard by; apparently men on the watch for their
intended victim.
At a short distance from the pool of blood was found the hammer of a
pistol that had been but recently broken off.
Upon the pockets of the deceased being examined, it became obvious
that robbery had been the object of the attack made upon him, for his
purse and a tablet and bunch of keys had been carried off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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