A howl of vehement indignation came from the packed court. Nearly everyone present sympathized with Betsy. They accepted George Pickering’s dying declaration as final; they regarded the Coroner’s attitude as outrageous.
For an instant the situation was threatening. It looked as though the people would wrest the girl from the hands of the police by main force. Old Mrs. Thwaites fainted, Kitty screamed dreadful words at the Coroner, and the girl’s father sprawled across the table with his face in his hands and crying pitifully.
Mr. Beckett-Smythe rose, but none would listen. There was a scene of tense excitement. Already men were crowding to the center of the room, while an irresistible rush from outside drove a policeman headlong from the door.
Mr. Herbert strove to make himself heard, but an overwrought member of the jury bellowed:
“Mak’ him record oor vardict, parson. What right hez he te go ageän t’ opinion o’ twelve honest men?”
Solicitors and reporters gathered their papers hastily, fearing an instant onslaught on the Coroner, and someone chanced to step on Angèle’s foot as she clung in fright to Martin. The child squealed loudly; her toes had been squeezed under a heavy boot.
Françoise, whose broad Norman face depicted every sort of bewilderment at the tumult which had sprung up for some cause she in no way understood, rose at the child’s cry of anguish, and incontinently flung two pressmen out of her path. She reached Angèle and faced the crowd with splendid courage.
The voluble harangue she poured forth in French, her uncommon costume, and fierce gesticulations gained her a hearing which would have been denied any other person in the room, save, perhaps, Betsy. And Betsy was striving to bring her mother back to consciousness, without, however, departing in the least particular from her own attitude of stoic despair.
The Coroner availed himself of the momentary lull. Françoise paused for sheer lack of breath, and Dr. Magnus made his voice heard far out into the village street.
“Why all this excitement?” he shouted. “The jury’s verdict will be recorded, but you cannot force me to agree with it. The police need not arrest Mrs. Pickering on my warrant at once. I hope they will not do so. Surely, as men of sense, you will not endeavor to defy the law? You are injuring this poor woman’s cause by an unseemly turmoil. Make way, there, at the door, and allow Mrs. Pickering to escort her mother to the hotel. You are frightening women and children by your bluster.”