The Maid of SkerBlackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
General
The Maid of Sker
Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
Foundlings -- Fiction; Romance fiction; Wales -- Fiction
"Show me this little white infant discovered among the black men. My
business here is not with infants, but with five young smothered men.
However, if there be an infant of another accident, and of Christian
colour, I will take it as a separate case, and damn the county in the
fees."
We assured his lordship, as every one now began to call him (in virtue
of his swearing so, which no doubt was right in a man empowered to make
other people swear), we did our best at any rate to convince the
Crowner, that over and above all black men, there verily was a little
child, and, for all one could tell, a Christian child, entitled to the
churchyard, and good enough for him to sit on. And so he entered the
house to see it.
But if he had sworn a little before (and more than I durst set down for
him), he certainly swore a great deal now, and poured upon us a bitter
heat of English indignation. All of the jury were taken aback; and I as
a witness felt most uneasy; until we came to understand that his
Honour's wrath was justly kindled on account of some marks on the baby's
clothes.
"A coronet!" he cried, stamping about; "a coronet on my young lord's
pinafore, and you stupid oafs never told me!"
Nobody knew except myself (who had sailed with an earl for a captain)
what the meaning of this thing was; and when the clerk of the church was
asked, rather than own his ignorance, he said it was part of the arms of
the crown; and the Crowner was bound like a seal by it.
This explanation satisfied all the people of the parish, except a few
far-going Baptists, with whom it was a point of faith always to cavil
and sneer at every "wind of doctrine" as they always called it--the
scent of which could be traced, anyhow, to either the parson or the
clerk, or even the gravedigger. But I was content to look on and say
nothing, having fish to sell, at least twice a-week, and finding all
customers orthodox, until they utter bad shillings.
CHAPTER XIV.
IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EVIDENCE.
There is no need for me to follow all the Crowner's doings, or all that
the juries thought and said, which was different altogether from what
they meant to think and say. And he found himself bound to have two of
them, with first right of inquest to the baby because of the stamp on
his pinafore. And here I was, foreman of the jury, with fifteenpence for
my services, and would gladly have served on the other jury after
walking all that way, but was disabled for doing so, and only got
ninepence for testimony. With that, however, I need not meddle, as every
one knows all about it; only, to make clear all that happened, and,
indeed, to clear myself, I am forced to put before you all that we did
about that baby, as fully and emphatically as the state of our doings
upon that occasion permitted me to remember it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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