Dr. Timms was still turning over in his mind the professional possibilities involved in Tallman’s bad fence-building, and casually sounding his jurors as to their private feelings toward the delinquent; the brothers had followed the jury up to the meadow plateau, and were standing aloof from yet among their neighbors, answering in monosyllables, and following mentally the work of the undertakers’ squad down in the bottom; the farmers were beginning to straggle off reluctantly, the demands of neglected work and long-waiting dinners conquering their inclination to remain—when a big carry-all from Tyre drove up on the road outside, and a score of men clambered out and over the fence to join the group. They had driven post-haste from the Convention, and among them were Ansdell, Beekman, and Milton Squires.
Mr. Ansdell came straight to the two brothers, giving a hand to each with a gesture full of tender comprehension. While they talked in low tones of the tragedy, they were joined by Abe Beekman; upon the normal eagerness and wistful solemnity of his gaunt face there was engrafted now a curious suggestion of consuming interest in some masked feature of the affair. He was so intent upon this, whatever it might be, that to the sensitive feelings of the other three he seemed to dash into the subject with wanton brusqueness.
“How air yeh, Fairchild?” he nodded to John, “I want somebody to tell me this hull thing, while it’s fresh. Who knaows th’ most ’baout it? Where’s th’ Cor’ner? What’s he done so far?”
Obedient to a word from John, the Coroner dignifiedly came over to the beech tree, where our little group stood, and listened coldly to a series of searching questions put by the Jay County magnate. When they were finished he made lofty answer:
“I ain’t institooted no inquiries yit. That’ll be arranged fur later, to convenience the family ’n’ the officers of the law. It ain’t customary, in cases of accident like this, to rush around like a hen with her head cut off, right at the start. The law takes these things ca’mly, sir—ca’mly ’n’ quietly.”
“But have you made an examination?—you are a doctor, I think,” interposed Ansdell. “Have you satisfied yourself when the death occurred? Have you learned any of the circumstances of it? Were there any witnesses?”
The Coroner looked at the questioner, then at the brothers, as if including them in his pained censure, then back again at Ansdell:
“I don’t know ez it’s any o’ your business,” he said. “Who air yeh, any way?”
Before anyone else could answer, Beekman spoke: “He’s the next Congressman from this deestrick—nominated by acclamation over at Tyre to-day—that’s who he is. But never mind that, what I want to knaow is—air yeh sure he died from an accident? Kin yeh swear to thet ez a doctor?”
“Toe be sure I kin!” responded the official, in a friendlier tone. “He was simply mashed out o’ shape by the fall. He come down forty feet, ef it was an inch, plum under the horses. They jest rolled over each other, all the way down.—And so this is Mr. Ansdell, I presewm. I’m proud to make yer acquaintance, sir. Only by the merest accident I wasn’t at the Convention to-day, sir.”