The ways of the hour

by James Fenimore Cooper

“These skeletons are very nearly of the same length,” resumed the doctor, after measuring them for the fifth time. “The man could not have been much, if any, taller than his wife.”

“He was not,” answered a juror. “Old Peter Goodwin could not have been more than five feet five, and Dorothy was all of that, I should think. When they came to meeting together, they looked much of a muchness.”

Now, there is nothing on which a prudent and regular physician is more cautious than in committing himself on unknown and uncertain ground. He has his theories, and his standard of opinions, usually well settled in his mind, and he is ever on the alert to protect and bolster them; seldom making any admission that may contravene either. He is apt to denounce the water cure, however surprising may have been its effects; and there is commonly but one of the “opathies” to which he is in the least disposed to defer, and that is the particular “opathy” on which he has moulded his practice. As for Dr. McBrain, he belonged strictly to the alapathic school, and might be termed almost an ultra in his adherence to its laws, while the number of the new schools that were springing up around him, taught him caution, as well as great prudence, in the expression of his opinions.[opinions.] Give him a patient, and he went to work boldly, and with the decision and nerve of a physician accustomed to practise in an exaggerated climate; but place him before the public, as a theoretical man, and he was timid and wary. His friend Dunscomb had observed this peculiarity, thirty years before the commencement of our tale, and had quite recently told him, “You are bold in the only thing in which I am timid, Ned, and that is in making up to the women. If Mrs. Updyke were a newfangled theory, now, instead of an old-fashioned widow, as she is, hang me if I think you would have ever had the spirit to propose.” This peculiarity of temperament, and, perhaps, we might add of character, rendered Dr. McBrain, now, very averse to saying, in the face of so much probability, and the statements of so many witnesses, that the mutilated and charred skeletons that lay on the court-house table were those of two females, and not those of a man and his wife. It was certainly possible he might be mistaken; for the conflagration had made sad work of these poor emblems of mortality; but science has a clear eye, and the doctor was a skilful and practised anatomist. In his own mind, there were very few doubts on the subject.

As soon as the thoughtful physician found time to turn his attention on the countenances of those who composed the crowd in the court-room, he observed that nearly all eyes were bent on the person of one particular female, who sat apart, and was seemingly labouring under a shock of some sort or other, that materially affected her nerves. McBrain saw, at a glance, that this person belonged to a class every way superior to that of even the highest of those who pressed around the table. The face was concealed in a handkerchief, but the form was not only youthful but highly attractive. Small, delicate hands and feet could be seen; such hands and feet as we are all accustomed to see in an American girl, who has been delicately brought up. Her dress was simple, and of studied modesty; but there was an air about that, which a little surprised the kind-hearted individual, who was now so closely observing her.

The doctor had little difficulty in learning from those near him that this “young woman,” so all in the crowd styled her, though it was their practice to term most girls, however humble their condition, “ladies,” had been residing with the Goodwins for a few weeks, in the character of a boarder, as some asserted, while others affirmed it was as a friend. At all events, there was a mystery about her; and most of the girls of Biberry had called her proud, because she did not join in their frivolities, flirtations and visits. It was true, no one had ever thought of discharging the duties of social life by calling on her, or in making the advances usual to well-bred people; but this makes little difference where there is a secret consciousness of inferiority, and of an inferiority that is felt, while it is denied. Such things are of every-day occurrence, in country-life in particular, while American town-life is far from being exempt from the weakness. In older countries, the laws of society are better respected.

It was now plain that the blight of suspicion had fallen on this unknown, and seemingly friendless girl. If the fire had been communicated intentionally, who so likely to be guilty as she? if the money was gone, who had so many means of securing it as herself? These were questions that passed from one to another, until distrust gathered so much head, that the coroner deemed it expedient to adjourn the inquest, while the proof might be collected, and offered in proper form.

Dr. McBrain was, by nature, kind-hearted; then he could not easily get over that stubborn scientific fact, of both the skeletons having belonged to females. It is true that, admitting this to be the case, it threw very little light on the matter, and in no degree lessened any grounds of suspicion that might properly rest on the “young woman”; but it separated him from the throng, and placed his mind in a sort of middle condition, in which he fancied it might be prudent, as well as charitable, to doubt. Perceiving that the crowd was dispersing, though not without much animated discussion in under tones, and that the subject of all this conversation still remained in her solitary corner, apparently unconscious of what was going on, the worthy doctor approached the immovable figure, and spoke.

“You have come here as a witness, I presume,” he said, in a gentle tone; “if so, your attendance just now will no longer be necessary, the coroner having adjourned the inquest until to-morrow afternoon.”

At the first sound of his voice, the solitary female removed a fine cambric handkerchief from her face, and permitted her new companion to look upon it. We shall say nothing, here, touching that countenance or any other personal peculiarity, as a sufficiently minute description will be given in the next chapter, through the communications made by Dr. McBrain to Dunscomb. Thanking her informant for his information, and exchanging a few brief sentences on the melancholy business which had brought both there, the young woman arose, made a slight but very graceful inclination of her body, and withdrew.

Dr. McBrain’s purpose was made up on the spot. He saw very plainly that a fierce current of suspicion was setting against this pleasing, and, as it seemed to him, friendless young creature; and he determined at once to hasten back to town, and get his friend to go out to Biberry, without a moment’s delay, that he might appear there that very afternoon in the character of counsel to the helpless.