A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel Read Online Free PDF Page A

our blunders after we have committed them. If we could see our errors as they approached, we might avoid them.
    Neither of the plowmen could identify a garment of that shade. While this fruitless conversation was taking place I saw one of the men peer over my shoulder. I turned to see in the distance Hubert Shillside and eleven others of the coroner’s jury come to inspect the place where Alan lay and question those who discovered him.
    I lingered to hear the plowmen answer as Shillside asked much the same questions I had asked. Their responses were the same. I was convinced they spoke the truth. And I was convinced neither had taken Alan’s shoes. The wooden-soled footwear which protected their feet was old and the leather which fixed the shoes to their feet was tattered. The beadle wore similar shoes, as did most who toil in the soil, but he would not wear shoes so worn as these. He was more prosperous than these plowmen.
    Shillside and his jurymen turned back along the path to town and I followed behind, uncertain of further measures I might take. I had come to Bushey Row, fifty paces behind the coroner’s men, when it occurred to me that I might speak to the priest at St Andrew’s Chapel. This cleric was probably closest of all men to the scene of Alan’s death. Perhaps he had heard some disturbance in the night – the cry of a man or the snarl of a beast. I turned and retraced my steps.
    I had returned to the place where Alan was found when in the distance I heard my name called. I turned and saw John Holcutt waving vigorously and striding purposefully in my direction. He was but a hundred paces away, just turned from Bushey Row on to the path to the chapel. He came puffing up to me a moment later.
    “You are needed, Master Hugh,” he panted. “The miller was openin’ the sluice gate this mornin’ when he slipped. Stones there be mossy from the damp. Wheel began to turn and caught ’is arm as he reached to steady himself.”
    “The arm is broken?” I asked.
    “Prob’ly…an’ near wrenched from ’is shoulder. He’s in great pain.”
    “Was he just now beginning his day? ’Tis well past noon.”
    “Nay. The injury happened early. He asked ’is wife to arrange a sling and thought to continue ’is work. But he cannot, and so wishes you to attend him.”
    I turned to walk back to town with the reeve. The priest at St Andrew’s Chapel would have to wait.
    Andrew the miller had suffered a grievous injury. His right arm was drawn from the socket at his shoulder, and his forearm was broken. I was confused as to what steps I must take to treat the man, or more to the point, in what order I must take those steps. Had his arm been whole I would have put his dislocated shoulder right, but to do so requires leverage and tugging on the arm. This I could not do, broken as his was.
    But if I should wait for the broken arm to mend, his displaced shoulder might then be so long out of joint that it could not be put right.
    I explained this to the miller. I could spare him more pain, leave the shoulder as it was, and set the broken arm. Or, I could attend to the dislocated shoulder, causing him great pain in the break for a few minutes. He could suffer now, and perhaps regain the proper use of his arm, or he could avoid agony now and live his life with the affliction of a useless arm.
    “’Ow can I work the mill with but one arm?” he asked.
    “You may have two good arms by St Swithin’s Day if you choose to have me make your shoulder right this day. Otherwise I think you will be burdened with a crippled arm from this day on.
    “I will set the break first, splint it strongly, and put a heavy layer of stiffened linen all about. Then I will see to your shoulder…but I will tell you now, the hurt will be great. I will make a potion, but it will not suffice to free you of all distress.”
    The miller was not a man of strong character. He avoided affliction when at all possible. Come to think on it, so do I. So do