“What did you say?”
“I only said I was afeard he might have been throwed over. Ferrar asked me why, but I didn’t like to say no more, for fear of doing mischief. It wasn’t me,” added Dance, appealing piteously to the jury. “I wouldn’t have hurt a hair of his head: he was weak and lame.”
“Is Ferrar here?” cried the coroner. “We must have him.”
Ferrar was not there. And Mr. Jones, speaking up, said he had seen nothing of Ferrar since the previous day. He was informed that he had taken French leave to go off somewhere—which kind of leave, in point of fact, he added, Master Ferrar was much in the habit of taking.
“But where has he gone?” cried the coroner. “You don’t mean he has decamped?”
“Decamped for the time being,” said Mr. Jones. “He will no doubt put in an appearance in a day or two.”
Not one of the jury but pricked up his ears; not one, I could see it in their faces, but was beginning to speculate on this absence of Ferrar’s. The coroner was staring straight before him, speculating too: and just then Fred Sanker said something in a half-whisper.
“Ferrar was with my brother King at the spot where he fell from. As far as we know he was the last person who ever saw him alive.”
“And not here!” cried the coroner. “Why is he not? Where does the neglect lie, I wonder? Gentlemen, I think we had better send round for his father, and ask an explanation.”
In a small town like Worcester (small in comparison with great capitals) the inhabitants, rich and poor, mostly know one another, what they are, and where their dwelling is. Old Ferrar lived within a stone’s-throw of the Angel; he was a china painter, employed by the Messrs. Chamberlain. Some one ran for him; and he came; a tidy-looking man in a good coat, with grey whiskers and grey hair. He bowed civilly to the room, and gave his name as Thomas Ferrar.