d Stevy over.
He came to the foot of a tree, where Rawdon told her she must stay; and
then she saw Harding run up behind him and hit him over the head with an
iron bar, and he fell down and went to sleep. Did Rawdon shoot him? She
shivered, and didn't know, nor could any cross examination extract this
evidence from her. Harding knocked him down with the iron bar, and he
went to sleep, and she couldn't wake him. Then she went to the corpse
and cried: "Oh, Stevy, Stevy, wake up, do wake up quick, for he'll come
again." The court and jury were deeply affected. Old Mr. Newberry, the
foreman of the jury, brought in the verdict to the effect that the
deceased was murdered by a blow from an iron bar administered by one
Harding, producing fracture of the skull, and by a pistol shot in the
left temple by some unknown person. Thus the first inquest came to an
end. The second inquest would have been a matter of difficulty, on
account of the large number of people supposed to be implicated in
Harding's death, had not Ben Toner, who had been called out of court,
returned with three good men and true, namely Mr. Bigglethorpe, M.
Lajeunesse, and a certain Barney Sullivan. These three parties, moved by
the entreaties of Widow Toner, had set out early in the morning to look
up the missing Ben; and were so delighted with their success, and so
tired with their walk, that they were willing to sit on anything, even a
coroner's jury. Accordingly, a new jury was empanelled, consisting of
Messrs. Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins, Bigglethorpe, Lajeunesse and
Sullivan, Errol, Wilkinson and Richards, with the Captain, Mr. Bangs,
and Squire Walker. The latter was chosen foreman. The coroner himself
acted as clerk. Ben Toner had seen the deceased in company with one
Newcome, and had heard him addressed as Harding. The coroner testified
to having examined the body, which exhibited no shot wound of any kind,
but the forehead was badly bruised, evidently by a stone, as gritty
particles were to be seen adhering to it, and two table knives were
still resting in the neighbourhood of the heart. The jury examined the
corpse, and, led by the foreman under guard of the constable, went out
across the road and over the fence into the field where Mr. Terry and
Coristine found the dead Harding lying. The place was well marked by the
beaten down grass, blood stains on a large boulder and on the ground,
and by the finding of a loaded revolver. Carefully examining the