The Maid of SkerBlackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
General
The Maid of Sker
Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
Foundlings -- Fiction; Romance fiction; Wales -- Fiction
As to the second inquest, I promised (as you may remember) to tell
something also. But in serious truth, if I saw a chance to escape it,
without skulking watch, I would liefer be anywhere else almost--except
in a French prison.
After recording with much satisfaction our verdict upon Bardie's
brother--which nearly all of us were certain that the little boy must
be--the Coroner bade his second jury to view the bodies of the five
young men. These were in the great dark hall, set as in a place of
honour, and poor young Watkin left to mind them; and very pale and ill
he looked.
"If you please, sir, they are all stretched out, and I am not afraid of
them;" he said to me, as I went to console him: "father cannot look at
them; but mother and I are not afraid. They are placed according to
their ages, face after face, and foot after foot. And I am sure they
never meant it, sir, when they used to kick me out of bed: and
oftentimes I deserved it."
I thought much less of those five great corpses than of the gentle and
loving boy who had girt up his heart to conquer fear, and who tried to
think evil of himself for the comforting of his brethren's souls.
But he nearly broke down when the jurymen came; and I begged them to
spare him the pain and trial of going before the Coroner to identify the
bodies, which I could do, as well as any one; and to this they all
agreed.
When we returned to the long oak parlour, we found that the dignity of
the house was maintained in a way which astonished us. There had been
some little refreshment before, especially for his Honour; but now all
these things were cleared away, and the table was spread with a noble
sight of glasses, and bottles, and silver implements, fit for the mess
of an admiral. Neither were these meant for show alone, inasmuch as to
make them useful, there was water cold and water hot, also lemons, and
sugar, and nutmeg, and a great black George of ale, a row of pipes, and
a jar of tobacco, also a middling keg of Hollands, and an anker of old
rum. At first we could hardly believe our eyes, knowing how poor and
desolate, both of food and furniture, that old grange had always been.
But presently one of us happened to guess, and Hezekiah confirmed it,
that the lord of the manor had taken compassion upon his afflicted
tenant, and had furnished these things in a handsome manner, from his
own great house some five miles distant. But in spite of the custom of
the country, I was for keeping away from it all, upon so sad an
occasion. And one or two more were for holding aloof, although they cast
sheep's-eyes at it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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