“Oh, will he, though!” blustered old Massock. “He had better try at it! We’d soon fetch him back again.”
“You’d be clever to do it,” said the doctor.
Any way, whether it was this or not, they thought better of the adjournment, and gave their verdict. “Manslaughter against Henry Lease.” And the coroner made out his warrant of committal to Worcester county prison: where Lease would lie until the March assizes.
“I am not sure but it ought to have been returned Wilful Murder,” remarked the Squire, as he and the doctor turned out of the Bull, and picked their way over the slush towards Crabb Lane.
“It might make no difference, one way or the other,” answered Mr. Cole.
“Make no difference! What d’ye mean? Murder and manslaughter are two separate crimes, Cole, and must be punished accordingly. You see, Johnny, what your friend Lease has come to!”
“What I meant, Squire, was this: that I don’t much think Lease will live to be tried at all.”
“Not live!”
“I fancy not. Unless I am much mistaken, his life will have been claimed by its Giver long before March.”
The Squire stopped and looked at Cole. “What’s the matter with him? This inflammation—that you went and testified to?”