The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin Read Online Free PDF

matters I know nothing of. Nor did he ever speak of her particularly.
    Mgts.:
To your knowledge was there ever an instance of Higgins soliciting the favors of any woman?
    Shaw:
Any woman?
    Mgts.:
Upon your sworn testimony.
    Shaw:
Well, ’Honors, he was as true to his good wife as most, I believe. To be honest, I know only of an instance with an Indian squaw. There was a misunderstanding. He had thought the woman a maid. And having been away from his family so long, was tempted that her company would do no harm. Yet later the woman confronted him with her husband. Higgins saw his mistake and sought reparations. With my help we made the husband understand Higgins’ mistake. He, thehusband, had threatened to carry the matter to our own magistrates, saw it as an assault. He knew adultery to be a serious crime under our laws.
    Our explanations along with some gifts in peace and good faith prevailed.
    Mgts.:
And there are no other adulterous instances to your knowledge?
    Shaw:
None, Sirs. He was, like any, likely to turn his eye on a beauty. Or like any other to comment on some passing jade or goodwife who caught his eye. But no instances such as this one.
    Mgts.:
Nor any bestial or sodomistical filthiness?
    Shaw:
None, Sirs. None.
    Mgts.:
Keep yourself available for further examination, Shaw. And to bear witness at the pleasure of the Court. Take no journeys mind you, even for your trade.

VI

    Upon his return to Robinson’s Falls, Browne spoke with Cole further about certain inhabitants of the settlement and then interviewed Darby Shaw. He found Shaw in his one-room bachelor’s cottage, sullenly awaiting the approach of weather warm enough to make extended travel to distant fur trading outposts practical. The inside walls of his cottage were hung with clean, well-oiled tools—hand saws, whip saws, files, wrests, augers, chisels, gimlets, froes, hammers, felling and broad axes.
    Thin, compact, tawny, Shaw was a peculiar-looking man. His appearance was less that of an Englishman than a French trader or cross-breed. His long hair was kept in place by a leather mechanism. His clothing was made of coarse animal skins worn with the fur side against his body, just as an Indian would reverse his clothing, fur inward, during cold seasons. Yet at the moment he also wore over the skins an English laboring man’s short brown fustian frock.
    Shaw seemed fatigued to Browne, despite his wiry strength, from his day spent building a new gristmill. And he was not pleased to have a stranger questioning him again about his friend Jared Higgins. He knew nothing about this, nothing about that. Browne knew better, so he tried another tack.
    â€œYou know Goody Higgins well?” Browne asked.
    â€œI do. She is my friend’s wife. Why would I not?”
    â€œIndeed. Have you any idea of her torment over the loss of her husband?”
    â€œOf course. What do you take me for? I feel much for the woman. I help as I can.”
    â€œSo she has told me,” Browne said.
    â€œHave you questioned Coffin and Mr. Cole?” Shaw asked.
    â€œI have.”
    â€œAnd you see no greater torment from that direction?”
    â€œCoffin? Thus far, I have not.”
    â€œThen you had better look deeper.”
    â€œWhat do you know of the matter?” Browne asked.
    â€œOnly that the woman is unnaturally tormented.”
    â€œAnd such torments you lay to Mr. Coffin?”
    â€œHe would have reason, by his lights.”
    â€œYet you have no other or clearer reason to believe these torments come from Mr. Coffin?”
    â€œYou need ask me that, Mr. Browne? From what you have said you know all the circumstances. You offer some other explanation of the source of her torments?”
    â€œSuch things do not always arise from dark arts.”
    â€œThen you lay to God these horrors?”
    â€œI do not presume to lay anything to God, Shaw. And I am careful in laying mischief to anyone. I have seen no horrors. Have