“Ramhard of the head, my lard, as clane athert shat, and as vaine a bird as iver I wish to zee. But, ahʼs me, her be a wosebird, a wosebird, if iver wur wan”.
Mark could scarcely control his tears, as he thought of the birdʼs evil omen, and yet he could not help admiring him. He turned him over and over again, and dropped a tear into his tail coverts. Mr. Brockwood saw it and gave him time; he knew that for many generations the Stotes had lived under the Nowells.
“Oh, the bird was shot, you say, on the right side of the head, and clean through the head”.
“Thank you”, proceeded the coroner. “Now, do you think that he could have moved after he touched the ground”?
“Nivir a hinch, I allow, my lard. A vell as dead as a stwoun”.
“Now inform the court, as nearly as you can, of the precise spot where you found it”.
It took a long time to discover this, for Mr. Stote had not been taught the rudiments of topography. Nevertheless, they made out at last that the woodcock had been found, dead on his back, with his bill up, eight or ten yards beyond the place where Clayton Nowell fell dead, and in a direct line over his body from the gap in the hedge where Cradock stood. Dr. Hutton must have found the bird, if he had searched a little further.
“Now”, said the coroner, forcibly. “Mr. Stote, I will ask you a question which is, perhaps, a little beyond the rules of ordinary evidence, I mean, at least, as permitted in a court of record”—here he glanced at the magistrates, who could not claim the rank of record—“which of these two unfortunate brothers caused, in your opinion, the death of—of that woodcock”?
Mr. Brockwood glanced at the coroner sharply, and so did his own clerk. Even the jury knew, by intuition, that he had no right to tout for opinions.
“Them crink–crank words is beyand me. Moy head be awl wivvery wi’ ’em, zame as if my old ooman was patchy”.