England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Short stories, English
"Has Herbert come to?" asked Tod laughingly, as he went to open the gate
for her.
"Oh dear, no," answered Alice. "He never will, if you mean as to hearing
me tell the dream."
They had a hot argument after she left: Mrs. Todhetley maintaining that
some dreams were to be regarded as sacred things; while Tod ridiculed
them with all his might, asserting that there never had been, and never
could be anything in them to affect sensible people. The Squire, now
taking one side, now veering to the other, remained in a state of
vacillation, something like Mahomet's coffin hovering between earth
and heaven.
And, you will now readily understand that when the following morning,
Wednesday, Colonel Letsom brought the Squire the news of Pym's death,
calling it murder, and that Jack was suspected, and the ship had gone
out without him, this dream of Alice Tanerton's took a new and not at
all an agreeable prominence. Even Tod, sceptical Tod, allowed that it
was "queer."
On this same morning, Wednesday, Alice received a letter from her
husband. He spoke of the mishap to the ship, said that she had put back,
and had again gone out; he himself being detained in London on business,
but he expected to be off in a day or two and join her at some place
down channel. But not a word did he say of the cause of his detention,
or of the death of Edward Pym. She heard it from others.
With this confirmation, as it seemed, of her dream, Alice took it up
more warmly. She went over to the old lawyer at Islip, John Paul,
recounted the dream to him, and asked what she was to do. Naturally,
old Paul told her "nothing:" and he must have laughed in his sleeve as
he said it.
* * * * *
The good ship, _Rose of Delhi_, finally went away with all her sails set
for the East; but John Tanerton went not with her.
The inquest on the unfortunate young man, Pym, was put off from time to
time, and prolonged and procrastinated. Captain Tanerton had to wait its
pleasure; the ship could not.
The case presented difficulties, and the jury could not see their way to
come to a verdict. Matters looked rather black against Captain Tanerton;
that was not denied; but not sufficiently black, it would seem, for
the law to lay hold of him. At any rate, the law did not. Perhaps the
persistent advocacy of Sir Dace Fontaine went some way with the jury.
Sir Dace gave it as his strong opinion that his misguided nephew, being
the worse for drink, had fallen of himself, probably with his head on
the iron fender, and that Captain Tanerton's denial was a strictly true
one. The end finally arrived at was--that there was not sufficient
evidence to show how the death was caused.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account