As far as anything connected with what took place at Malvern he was in total ignorance, he said. When his son Mark got home on the Tuesday night, he had told him that Captain Sanker’s little boy had fallen down a part of the hill, and that he, Mark, had been one of those who helped to find him. In the afternoon of the same day they heard the little boy had died.
“Where is your son?” asked the coroner.
“I am not sure where he is,” replied Thomas Ferrar. “When I and his brother got home from the factory on Wednesday evening, my daughter told me Mark had gone off again. Somebody had given him half-a-crown, I believe. With that in his pocket, he was pretty sure to go off on one of his rovings.”
“He is in the habit of going off, then?”
“Yes, sir, he has done it on occasion almost ever since he could run alone. I used to leather him well for it, but it was of no use; it didn’t stop it. It’s his only fault. Barring that, he’s as good and upright a lad as anybody need have. He does not go off for the purpose of doing harm: neither does he get into any.”
“Where does he go to?”
“Always to one of two places; to South Crabb, or to his grandfather’s at Pinvin. It’s generally to South Crabb, to see the Batleys, who are cousins of my late wife’s. They’ve boys and girls of Mark’s own age, and he likes to be there.”
“You conclude, then, that he is at one of these places now?”
“Sure to be, sir; and I think it’s sure to be South Crabb. He was at Pinvin a fortnight ago; for I walked over on the Sunday morning and took him with me. Mark is of a roving turn; he is always talking of wanting to see the world. I don’t believe he’ll ever settle down to steady work at home.”