Charlie was the next witness. The boy was as white as a sheet, and his eyes were swollen with crying. He glanced piteously at his brother, and exclaimed with a sob, “Oh! Ned.”
“Don't mind, Charlie,” Ned said quietly. “Tell the whole story exactly as it happened. You can't do me any harm, old boy.”
So encouraged Charlie told the whole story of the quarrel arising in the first place from his stepfather's ill temper at the tea table.
“Your brother meant nothing specially unpleasant in calling your stepfather Foxey?” Mr. Wakefield asked.
“No, sir; he had always called him so even before he knew that he was going to marry mother. It was a name, I believe, the men called him, and Ned got it from them.”
“I believe that your stepfather had received threatening letters, had he not?”
“Yes, sir, several; he was afraid to put his new machines to work because of them.”
“Thank you, that will do,” Mr. Wakefield said. “I have those letters in my possession,” he went on to the magistrates. “They are proof that the deceased had enemies who had threatened to take his life. Shall I produce them now?”
“It is hardly worth while, Mr. Wakefield, though they can be brought forward at the trial. I may say, indeed, that we have seen some of them already, for it was on account of these letters that we applied for the military to be stationed here.”
It was not thought necessary to call Mrs. Mulready; but the servant gave her evidence as to what she had heard of the quarrel, and as to the absence of Ned from home that night.