‘Yes, yer honour; but we calls the beach below Dragon’s Foot the lower beach, because so be, when the tide runs out--’ ‘You are not here to tell us when the tide runs out, but to say how you discovered the body of the deceased Jane Emily Walcheren,’ said the coroner, consulting his papers. ‘Yes, yer worship. Well! as I and my mate here was a-haulin’ up the boats, I says to him, I says, “Bob,” I says, “what be that ’ere bundle of white,” I says, “under the cliff?” “Blowed if I know,” he says, “it looks like a sheet as has blowed over in drying,” he says.’ ‘You are not here to tell the jury what your mate thought the body looked like. You are to tell us how you found it.’ ‘Yes, sir. Well, sir, we thought it was a sheet, you see, but when we went to pick it up, we see it was a young woman. So we lifted her atween us and carries her to this ’ere ’ouse, and then my mate he fetches Dr M‘Coll. And that’s all, sir!’ ‘Very good! Now, tell us, please, when you found the body was there no one about?’ ‘Not a soul as we see, my lord--I mean, yer worship--the beach was empty from hend to hend.’ ‘And the cliffs?’ ‘Didn’t see a soul on the cliffs neither, yer worship.’ ‘You met no one on your way here? You are sure!’ ‘Quite sure, your honour! ’Twould be all over the town if we had!’ ‘Very well! You can sit down. Call Dr M‘Coll!’ The doctor, having been sworn, deposed that he had been called to the ‘Bottle and Spurs’ at about six o’clock on Saturday night, to see the deceased. She was then quite dead--had been dead for two or three hours. There was a large bruise on the temple caused by her striking against the rocks in her fall. That was of itself sufficient to have caused death, but the spine was broken and the neck. The body was also much bruised. There was no question but that the deceased had met her death by falling over the cliffs. ‘Now, Dr M‘Coll, I should like to put a few questions to you, if you please,’ said Mr Procter, looking his very sharpest. ‘Is it your opinion that the deceased must inevitably have fallen over the cliffs of her own accord? Might she not have been blown over, or pushed over, or thrown herself over by design?’ ‘Certainly she might! It is impossible to say how she came to fall over, but she _did_ fall over--that is beyond a question.’ ‘Ah!’ said the coroner, with self-satisfaction, as if he had discovered a very knotty point. ‘Then you consider death was due--’ ‘To dislocation of the spine from a fall over the cliffs.’ ‘That’s your opinion, is it?’ remarked the coroner, dubiously. ‘Yes, sir, that’s my opinion,’ replied M‘Coll shortly, as he retired. The next witness was Crampton. He came tottering into the room, and stood supporting himself on his silver-mounted cane. ‘You are, I believe, the father of the deceased, Mr Crampton,’ began the coroner, scrutinising the old man through his eye-glasses. ‘I am, sir. She was my only child--the only one I had left.’