WASTRALLS (continued 4)

He put his hands on the arms of the chair and sought to rise. He swayed his body forward, big head and broad deep-chested bulk; but under him his limbs failed. They hung leaden, lifeless. Not only had it become impossible for him to pass that farther door which stood sentinel by the foot of the stairs, but even to move. Escape through the gates of sleep? No, not by any gate.

She, to whom the injury had been done, was become his judge. She knew, at last, that she had been married for her inheritance; endured as a man endures the mole on his face and finally, for the sake of another woman, pushed into the grave. Events, stripped of life's concealing leafage, would be bare to her informed considering eye. Sabina had been wronged from the first day of their meeting to the last. Always a swift clear creature, he thought of her as running through the midnight passage, intent on vengeance, merciless.

The latch rattled suddenly, increasing the man's dread. He forgot the fitful wind, the faulty lock. His vivid imagination showed him, instead, a hand upon the door-knob, outlined for him in the night of the passage, a dim and bodiless greyness, told him the frail barrier of wood was all that stood between him and a just but awful vengeance. No wonder that mere flesh and blood shrank cowering, that to the guilty creature it was as if his parts were falling away from him, as if he were sinking into the thin unprotected shell of himself.

A gust of wind tore across the wide peace of the sky; and a loose tile slipped to fall crashing on the roof of the porch. The sharp smash of glass let in the night, let in the wind and the heavy roar of the sea. Byron, drowning in superstitious terror strained his ears to catch, among the many sounds, that which should fulfil his dread anticipation; and as he waited, as he listened, the latch of the door slipped over the catch.

Slowly the green door swayed to an impulse from the farther side. Cold air poured into the room from all the unwarmed chambers beyond the kitchen, from that great room at the end. The narrow strip of black began to widen ominously and, in Byron's guilty breast, it was as if his heart had ceased to beat. Between his lips, his dry tongue made a hoarse feeble sound, neither a cry nor a groan, but the utterance of a man in his extremity. The door swung creaking on its hinges and the flame in the ill-fed lamp leapt up and died. Above the other sounds, above that distant roar and the creaks and murmurs of an old draughty house, rose a heavy stumbling, the crash of a fall. The outer edge of fear, the limit of endurance had been passed and Byron had fallen in a swoon across the hearth.

CHAPTER XV

Behind the hurrying clouds the moon had risen into a clear space of sky and now hung low, her chill yet faithful breast towards her mate. The light fell on the yard of Wastralls, on the still pond in the corner and the geese sleeping beside it, on the irregular outline of the houses and courts, and on the windows of the farmstead.

At one corner a little casement, that looked towards the morning sun, was swinging open, its white curtain flowing in the stream of air; and on the porch, through the black aperture of a broken pane, the light poured over winter-nipped geraniums. It poured too, through the diamonds of the kitchen window and lay in bright squares on table and floor. The ill-fed lamp, expiring in the sudden draught from the porch, had tainted the air and time had drawn over the face of the fire a veil of ash.

What looked like a heap of rags had been flung across the desecrated hearth. It lay beyond the square of moonlight and below the faint glow of the smouldering logs and, but for its density, might have been a companion shadow to those whispering in the corners of the wide low room.

With a clash of metal upon metal a door swung to, failed to catch and banged again. The huddle of clothes, as if recalled to life by the broken irritating sounds moved a little, and presently dragged itself with evident difficulty into a sitting posture. Byron, falling across the fender, had bruised himself against the steel edge; and he came out of nothingness into dull but growing discomfort. His shoulder, having struck the boss of the oven door, pained him; his head, having hit the stone floor, ached. What had happened? How had he hurt himself? Why was he lying on the kitchen floor? His heavy head swung round till his gaze was caught by the fitful movement of the door. He knitted his dark brows but the memories connected with it escaped him. A current of air was passing through some open window into Wastralls and, in obedience to its impulse, the door was swinging. The man's mind, alive to the practical, went from window to window on the ground-floor, until it found the one of which the fastening was insecure. He settled on it with a feeling of satisfaction and, making a further effort, dragged himself to his feet.

In spite of the low fire and the thin current of wintry air flowing in from the passage, the atmosphere of the kitchen was warm and pleasant. The moonlight made the few pieces of furniture, the high glazed china cupboard, the press, the tables, dimly visible. Byron, his hand to an aching back, was conscious of the homely comfortable nature of his surroundings.

He had forgotten the extremity of terror out of which he had slipped into a merciful unconsciousness, but he was still confused, still sore and, in the familiar aspect of the room, he found a certain solace. This was his home, his place, his for as long as he should live. He had a feeling that something had happened which made the place more indubitably, absolutely, his, than hitherto and, balancing himself first on one foot then on the other, he stared about him, heavily content. The thick walls, the many-paned windows, the plain familiar black of the rafters and white-wash of the walls! His! His till the end of time! He smiled to himself and the smile on that haggard, blood-stained face, was that of a child who after long waiting has been given the plaything it desires.

The arms of the big chair wooed him to comfort, but out of the void Byron had brought the conviction that his work was not yet finished. In a dull bemused way, the way of a man conscious of little but physical weariness, he pondered the effort which was required of him. What was it he had to do, before he could slouch away to bed?

His glance swung from side to side, questioning the friendly faces of the furniture, pausing eventually on the still swinging door. That door, yes. He considered its dark oblong and shining handle. The round brass knob, bright in the general dimness, a tiny moon against the blackness of the door, drew him; yet, deep in himself, was a stiff reluctance. He groped in the confusion of his mind for understanding, until suddenly, like an Icelandic geyser, memory tore its way out.

He remembered! They—a vague they of several personalities—had goaded him to desperation. He saw himself crossing a room, taking a bottle out of the cupboard, pouring the contents into a jug. One moment he had been innocent of this tremendous act, in the next it was accomplished. He stood amazed at this new vision of himself, the doer of deeds. The lack of hesitation, the steadiness, the decision surprised him. He had not known of what he was capable and, for a moment, he was wholly pleased.

Further recollections showed a falling off. He had become gradually conscious of guilt, he had grovelled in superstitious terror. Guilt? He shook his head, like a dog shaking drops of water from its coat. A man may do what he can. His deeds are between him and his soul; and the fear of punishment is a survival from the times when he was subservient to the will of another. Whatever the quality of a man's deeds, the doing of them proves him. Byron, his back to the dying fire, his dark head rising above the mantelshelf, drew himself up. He had been humiliated and he resented it. Living by faith, he had long cherished the difficult belief that of the two personalities, his and Sabina's, his was the stronger. True, he had wasted his energies in a daydream while she ordered their lives; but he had known that this must come to an end and, behold, when the crucial moment arrived, he had played a man's part. If she were able to see the past in true perspective she must acknowledge the provocation given; must see that he had been driven, that no other course was open to him. A longer endurance on his part would have been weakness and would have justified her in withholding the land. She must, at long last, see how wrongly she had acted.

If, on the contrary, she were to resent his snatching from her that poor fag-end of life, if she were incapable to seeing his point of view, if in unsaintly rancour she decided to haunt her old home, he decided that he would not care. A spirit hand cannot strike, nor a ghostly whisper vex. She might wander through Wastralls, wail in the keyholes and the chimneys, but it should make no difference. She would be but a fancy of the dusk, a shade flitting from room to room, a presence. If Gray became conscious of it, she would only voice a regret which had already lost its poignancy. Sabina could not interfere with their possession of her house and property. She might 'walk' but, as he did not believe she could divulge the secret of her death, 'walk' she might.

Moreover, if she haunted Wastralls, it would only be to see come to pass what she least desired. Another would farm the land, another take her place indoors. For her to haunt them would only bring her additional pain. She, not they, would suffer. Byron laughed hoarsely, for by killing her he had indeed avenged her treatment of him; but, in that contented laughter, was still a note of surprise. He had known that he could act with decision, yet was surprised to find that he had done so. A thin wave of self-gratulation flowed over his weary mind. He had justified himself; yet—had he—altogether?

A man is not looked on as a 'foreigner' by his neighbours without knowing and resenting it. Only by an assumption of superiority can he equalize matters. For many years Byron had been contemptuous of the opinions held by the community. At last his contempt had found concrete expression. He had dared and he knew that no man of that community, no Rosevear, Brenton or Old would dare as much. Yes, he had shown a courage such as they, if they knew of it, must secretly envy and yet... He had not been altogether brave. Though he had taken life he had been abjectly afraid. Unable to recapture the ecstasy of that anguish he looked back in shame and doubt. Unseemly terror had given shape to a black nothing and that nothing had been stronger than he. Before he could be at peace with himself he must rise above this humiliation, prove it to have been momentary, a lapse.

Stiffening himself, he gazed at the door which had now swung wide, uncovering the black mouth of the passage. What a fool he had been to think that Sabina had come in search of him. And even if she had? Afraid of a dead woman? He set his teeth yet felt his heart leaping and the blood singing in his ears. Afraid? He would show—himself—that nothing, neither apparition nor invisible presence, could daunt him. Let Sabina have her will, she was only Sabina. He grasped eagerly at the new thought. Only Sabina! Not some unknown unimaginable terror, but the tame convenient Sabina with whom he had lived in domestic intimacy for so long. How could he have fancied that by dying she had become invested with horrific power? He cursed his folly; and the words that came to his tongue were big-sounding foreign words that he had already uttered once that night, words which had come to him out of the days when he had sailed with strange men in strange waters. The curses were echoed back to him out of the passage and, for a moment, the sound once more stirred his blood with the cold finger of fear. This time he only swore more loudly, and the old words, evoking the atmosphere of daredevilry with which he had been once familiar, gave him courage. Memories that lay at the back of his mind, memories of lands where human life is of less importance than that of a sheep, of dangers and adventures, recurred to him. His voice was no longer a hoarse threat. It filled the kitchen with a round full sound, dominating the seen and the unseen, stiffening him until he knew there was nothing he would not dare. He would even walk down the passage between the kitchen and the justice-room and open that green door at the end.

Those roistering nights in South American cities had been a reaction from the pent life on shipboard, had been spiced with hot dangers, mad loves and sudden death; but this last adventure was one on which no man would willingly embark. Byron, with his heart cold and middle age in his limbs, would go as a man goes on direful errand. He would go because he must prove his courage, his right to take Sabina's place, to own Wastralls, to play the lover. This was his hour and, if he avoided the issue, he must admit that those—he said 'those' but he meant one only—who had held him of no account were right. Byron's outer life had for many years been eventless; but his dreams had been a shifting drama full of colour, a play enacted for one spectator, himself. Now that dissatisfied one was insisting on reality instead of dreams and, in his state of dull-reaction from the terrors of the supernatural, he was willing. He saw, however, that what was to do, should be done at once. The courage of flesh and blood is a poor thing at best and, if he stayed upon his going, likely to run out at the finger-tips.

His hands, as he took a candle from the linhay shelf and lighted it, were cold. Drawing water, he braced himself by drinking great gulps of the icy fluid; and, thus invigorated, returned to the kitchen with his head up. Nor, indeed, until he reached the door did he hesitate and then it seemed to him that the room was a snug place and quite peculiarly safe. In leaving it he was courting danger, leaving himself without a wall to set his back against!

The candle flame leaping in a cross-current of air, revealed the door at the end of the passage, and Byron saw with relief that it was shut. This to his mind proved the hollowness of his late fears. A spirit should be able to pass through the wood of a shut door, to slip through crack or keyhole; but the contrary is maintained by those who claim to know. Doors, they say, may be burst open, handles may turn without visible agency; but, once the bolt is shot or the key turned, the haunt must remain on the other side. That closed green door proved to Byron that the disembodied Sabina had not left her room, that his terrors had been without foundation. With his lips twisted in a contemptuous grin he stepped into the passage.

His nailed boots struck the stones with a clash that echoed up the staircase. Wastralls was so resoundingly empty that the brave sound was heard whispering away in the attics, whispering as do the monuments of extinct families in the week-day quiet of a church. Step by step, for the air seemed to him of the consistency of mud, the man pushed his way. To left of him were doors, doors without significance, doors which opened upon innocent and commonplace parlours. He passed these without seeing them and came at last to the heavy door of the old justice-room.

This door had a strong lock and was of stout wood. Nevertheless, it was being shaken from within and, for a moment, Byron's courage failed. Remembering the draught in which his candle had flared, however, the cold air which had poured into the kitchen, he understood. A wind was tearing at the door, a draught from some window which had been blown open. He suspected the little Gothic casement in the eastern wall, the wood of which he knew to be worm-eaten and the fastening worn. It occurred to him, that, if for no other reason, he must have come in to close that window. As he pushed open the door, the waiting wind swooped on the candle flame and left him in darkness. A noise of banging and howling assailed his ears; but the countryman, his superstitious fears held at arm's length for the nonce, recognized it. He had been right. The Gothic window, which a sun-lover had set in the three-foot wall, was open and knocking against the plaster. Byron, forcing himself to walk with deliberate steps, crossed the room and shut it. At once the old stillness fell over the place, the silence that is more alarming than any sound. Byron, his back to the window, listened but the hush was unbroken. Nothing moved, nothing even breathed. He relighted the candle and a host of shadows darted away. The room, which had been a mere cavern of the winds, showed an accustomed face, the shining features of old furniture, the outline of a monumental bed. He looked about, anxious to establish a feeling of friendly relationship. These objects, giving service for house-room, had shared the place with him. They were older than he, so old they seemed to him part of Wastralls. The familiar shapes were pleasing to him. He raised the candle but, as he did so, became vaguely aware of change. The furniture wore a new look. The faint life that dwelt behind its wooden surfaces seemed, suddenly, to have grown less remote. He felt that the pieces were watchful and no longer friendly. He had lived with them in a long peace but, on that night, a pact had been broken. They knew and from being household goods had changed to household gods, the guardians of the home. No longer fitting obscurely into their appointed places, they had an air of purpose. They seemed on the verge of movement. Byron, startled by their covert hostility, yet drew his brows together. "Pack o' nonsense for me to think like that," he muttered, and thereby sealed their doom. When he brought Gray home he would send this old stuff to the dealer and buy new furniture, light woods, mirrors, bamboo. In spite of his stout heart, however, he stepped away rather hastily from the tall-boy. It appeared, in the uncertain light, to be leaning treacherously forward, to be about to fall and, with its weight of mahogany, to crush whatever was within reach.

The covert malignancy of these shining and familiar faces impressed Byron, but a man can conquer the inanimate, he can rend and smash and burn; at least he can if, aware of hostility, he were careful to strike first.

With an effort, he steadied himself. Before him, vast and shadowy, the great bed of 'Old Squire' stood out from the wall and Byron turned towards it with a tread that shook the ancient floor. Sabina had taken a housewifely pride in this bed. Every spring it had been stripped of curtains and valances, of ceiling and headcloths and of padded foot-cover. These when washed had been restretched, backaching job, to retain that stiff spotlessness for a twelvemonth. Sabina had never omitted an iota of this ritual. As the bed had been handed down to her, so it should be kept. The spring cleansing and restretching were part of the mysterious rhythm of life.

Beside the curtain stood that piece of mechanism which had enabled Sabina to move about the house and from which every night she swung herself into bed. On the other side was a small table on which lay a candlestick and the brown cocoa-jug.

As he approached the bed, the man forgot the dim hostility by which he was surrounded, in a practical doubt. How if the poison had proved insufficient and she should open her eyes, those ice-blue eyes and ask what had brought him thither? For a moment he stood humbly at the foot of her bed. He dared not look.

The candle-light fell on a quiet face, on closed eyes, on shut lips. She had said—"Good night."

Sabina lay on her back, a squat figure, occupying in that great bed but a little space. The bright silk quilt had been folded neatly back over the mahogany foot and her covering was as white as the hangings. It swept in a generous curve over her breast, this breast which no longer rose and fell.

The man ventured, at last, to look and his heart leapt with relief, with more than relief, with a primitive and savage joy. In the long struggle between them he had won.

The rose had faded from Sabina's cheek, but her lips were curving as if over a pleasant thought. She had taken with her into the dark the hope that she and her husband might soon be reconciled, that years of concord lay before them and this sweet expectation had given her a look of unfathomable peace. The serenity of her dead face was that of the blue night, the night that is beyond the clouds of earth. She was no longer the successful farmer, the stoutest heart in Tregols, but something infinitely remote. In dying she had proved that if life is transitory and insignificant, death hides behind closed lips, an intriguing mystery. Byron, vaunting the folly of a mad moment, of a dark dream interpretated in terms of earth, became slowly conscious of it. Drop by drop, the passion of his exultation fell. This was not the workaday woman he had known, the woman whose obstinacy and unreasonableness had so angered him, but a creature spiritually changed. He could not feel that she would bear any resentment against the instrument of what was, undoubtedly, a release. Life had chained and prevented her, now she was free and he no longer counted with her in any way. She was afar off. Human interests had dwindled to the humming of a hive and he, whom she had cherished, was become one among many. The conviction of this was not only humbling, it brought a sense of loss. The place where he had been wont to sit at ease had been shut against him and the door locked and bolted. He was outside and unimportant and forgotten.

The last dregs of his excitement ran out leaving him with a sense of emptiness. Sabina was dead and death had raised a barrier between them which should have given him a sense of security. But from such a one as the woman, folded in ineffable peace, who lay before him, was no need of escape. This Sabina was a development of the other, the generous large-souled creature for whom the mean and the sordid had no existence. Byron had come to face Sabina and prove himself the stronger, but he stood before her like a child that had lost its way. For some minutes he waited in desolate silence, his heart sinking, his sense of inexorable loss growing more poignant. Sabina was dead, she had set out upon a journey from which she was never to return and he was left. The great chest heaved suddenly and a sob burst from him. Stumbling, and with the hardly wept tears of manhood rolling over his cheeks, he turned away. The door slammed behind him as he made for the shallow stairs that led to his room. Once in his refuge he flung himself on the bed, muffling his tempestuous weeping in the pillow—as he had done, when, as a boy, he had fled the fatherly corrections of the elder Leadville.

On the morrow he would awaken to the old life of narrow interests and lusts and scheming; but that night he mourned with exceeding grief, mourned that golden bowl which had been his and which he had cast down and broken. The bed shook under his sobs and the little hours before the dawn scurried up, dragging after them a new and reluctant day. Byron was a weary man, overwrought both in body and mind; and by degrees the noisy gulps, the long shudders, the groans grew less frequent. He sank into broken sleep, started from it with a catch of the breath and a sudden desolate cry, but fell back again. His slumbers deepened until he lay quiescent, his heavy frame thrown across the bed, his arms outstretched. At intervals a quiver passed over his body, but he had drifted out upon quiet seas and was—poor miserable wight—at rest.

CHAPTER XVI

In the bright moonlight Mrs. Tom stood at her garden gate to watch Mrs. Constantine Rosevear—or Mrs. Conny, as she was called—walk up the road. A big strong woman was Bessie Rosevear but full of nervous fears; and she had professed herself unable to go back to the mill unless some one 'put 'er 'ome.' The revelry of the evening, though sober and moderate, had carried the party into the small hours. Tom had gone off to bed and it fell, therefore, to one of the five maidens to accompany her aunt.

"Aw poor sawl, I'm pretty and sorry for 'er bein' so nervous," thought Mrs. Tom, making kindly allowance. "One of 'er boys should 'av come down to put 'er 'ome. They are always rangin' about in the evenings after the maidens, but any'ow Richbell was glad of a mouthful of fresh air."

The breath of the night, though tempered by the sea, was cool and she had thrown round her an old blue cloak lined with home-cured skins. They crackled slightly as she leaned against the low stone wall, thinking the warm and wandering thoughts of motherhood.

The voices of aunt and niece were blown back to her on that cool breath. Bessie was a slatternly creature and her house the untidiest in the parish, but she had bred tall sons, sons who, as long as she fed them well, seemed indifferent to the discomfort of their home. Mrs. Tom, listening contentedly to Richbell's voice with its clear laugh, found her thoughts straying from the handsome creature whose fortune was to seek to that one of the brood whose choice was made. As the mother of 'a long tail,' she was well pleased her eldest should be marrying so early and so well. Jim's 'auntie' would leave him what she had, 'while, whatever happened to Wastralls, S'bina would see they didn't want for nothing while she was livin'. The young couple would have every chance of gettin' on in the world; and the mother who had been a fish-seller's daughter, living from hand to mouth, took stock of their future with a grateful heart. She had done well for herself and Gray, 'with a good-livin' 'ard-workin' feller like Jim, might do even better.' She hoped the other maidens would follow their sister's example; but with the hope, a doubt, a doubt of Richbell, threaded itself darkly through the loose gold of her meditations. Richbell, the pretty madcap, was just the one to leap before she looked and, of the lads who wanted her, to take the least promising. Mrs. Tom shook her own still pretty head. The world would be a happier, more comfortable place, if parents had the arranging of their children's future, at least in matrimony.

From where she stood, a stretch of bright water was visible. The sea was calling in a hoarse undertone, a sort of thunderous roar which yet did not deaden other sounds and, looking down, Mrs. Tom's glance rested on the courts and outhouses of Wastralls. If Sabina had her way, Gray and her young husband would live there. Again the wise woman shook her head. 'Leadville might prove a snake in the grass. S'bina was a good sort but she wasn't sensible. If she 'ad been she would 'av left the farmin' to 'er man.' Mrs. Tom was sorry for Leadville 'mumpin' round like an ole dog and 'e wi' the finest farm in the valley and just longin' to put 'is strength into the workin' of it. A woman's place was in the house, making the butter and feeding the fowls and no good ever came of she takin' on a man's work. 'Twas bad for both of 'em and worse'n ever now she'd lost her laigs, poor sawl. It must make the man feel mad, 'er 'oldin' to the reins when 'e ought to 'av 'em!' Mrs. Tom, her time fully occupied with housewifely and maternal duties, could see the mistakes her neighbours were making and the proper remedy; but, as she could not hope to alter circumstances which had made those mistakes inevitable, she preserved the indulgent kindliness of her attitude.

The wind, sweeping round by the gate, made her fold herself more closely in the blue cloak. She thought of Gray in her new happiness and shivered a little as if conscious of a creeping chill. Her work was pretty near done. One by one each little bird would spread its young wings and fly away until, in the end, only the empty nest would remain to her. She would have been glad if Tom, sleeping deeply, had been at hand with his comfortable "Well, mother, tired be 'ee? Take and come on in and talk to me a bit."

The moonlight revealed the empty stretch of road, the sharp shadows of the hedges and, at the top, the rounded tower of the mill. A patch of moving blackness could presently be descried. Through the windy stir came the light patter of running feet and, in a minute, Richbell, breathless and gay, almost fell into her mother's arms.

"Now, Wild-e-go, where you gwine in such a hurry?" protested Mrs. Tom.

"Oh, mammy, I dunno. I'm so delighted I dunno what to do wi' meself."

"Av 'ee enjoyed yourself this evening then?"

"Ah, I should think I had!" With two lads glowering at each other across the harmonium, Richbell had been entirely happy.

"You'm a proper flirt."

"I can't help it. I don't ask the boys to come."

The mother passed a rough hand over the girl's curly mop. She was proud of Richbell's ''ead of 'air,' bronze hair with warm lights. "Did I hear you sayin' you was goin' to Percy 'Olman's place to tea?"

"Well, I'd nothing to do to keep me home."

"I'd sooner it was Will Brenton."

"Well, mammy, if I don't like him, what's the good for you to talk?"

Mrs. Rosevear sighed, for Will was heir to a good farm while Percy was a sailor, dependent for his prospects on an uncle who had other nephews. "My dear, you can't live with the man alone, you must 'av something to live on."

"I don't care. If I don't have grand things I must have others."

"As you make your bed, my dear, so you must lie. I 'ad to fight my way in the world and so must you, that's all; but—Will Brenton's a steady decent chap."

"Well, so he is, but I don't want to get married yet. Half the young girls that's married now, don't see no young life but I mean to."

Mrs. Tom was not to be turned from the point she was making. "An' Percy's always after the maidens."

Richbell laughed. She knew her power over the lads.

Mrs. Tom understood the laugh. "'E bain't always 'ome," she said, answering its young complacency. "Percy's a sailor and they say sailors 'av a wife in every port."

But Richbell's self-confidence was not to be shaken. "Oh, it's only a bit of chaff. Why, mammy, I like a bit of chaff myself."

"Yes, but you'll find, my dear, that what's good for the goose bain't always good for the gander. Maidens see a thing one way and wives another."

But the girl was not one to take advice. "I shall only be young once," she said, "and I shall travel me own road. You talk about me, didn't you have chaps after you? You haven't got the first man you went with, have you?"

She had carried the war into the enemy's country. From sage maturity Mrs. Tom fell back a score of years, fell back to the days when she too must make her choice.

"Did you now, mammy?" insisted the girl.

"My dear," Mrs. Tom was groping for her mislaid dignity, "your father was my first sweetheart!"

"Well, then," youth had caught a word here and a glance there, enough lime for her mortar, "well, then, he wasn't always your sweetheart."

"I was to Plymouth in service and he was 'ere. We didn't care for letter-writin'."

"Who was that chap in Plymouth, then?"

Mrs. Tom gave way. "Oh, a sailor, like they all are. 'E've done very well for 'isself. 'E's a captain now."

"Mammy!" Out of two hints Richbell had evolved a fact. "'Twasn't that man that left the impudent message for daddy last summer, was it?"

"Take and 'old yer tongue, do!" But recollection had lighted Mrs. Tom's eyes with laughter.

"Well, was it?"

"Iss. 'E said, 'Is ole Tom livin' yet? I'm waitin' for 'e to die. I want 'is shoes.'"

"He isn't married yet?"

"'E say 'e's waitin' for me."

"Why didn't you have him?"

"Because I liked your father best." Remembering the lesson she had been trying to inculcate, she added more soberly, "'E 'ad the promise of a good farm."

"That had nothing to do with it," said youth shrewdly. "You liked him."

"Well, I did." And she continued happily, "I 'eard 'e was goin' wi' Nina Old and I came 'ome to see."

"And was he?"

"I run right against them up to Four Turnin's and I gived 'im a look."

"I know," laughed Richbell delightedly. "I know how you looked."

"'An 'e lifted 'is 'at to me." She paused meditatively. "'Good evening,' he says and come straight over to me."

"Left her?"

"There and then."

"Iss, mammy?"

"We was married in a month from that day; but come, my dear, 'tis blowin' up for a storm and we better go in now. You got to go down to Wastralls early to-morrow mornin'."

They glanced along the road and, from Hember standing boldly out from the hillside, it was as if Wastralls lay in a hollow.

"Why," said Richbell, with suddenly awakened interest, "look, mammy, some one's still up down there. There's a light in the kitchen window."

"'Tis late, too."

The girl shivered and drew nearer to her mother. "I expect it's Uncle Leadville cleaning that old gun of his. I can't abide to see him rubbing away at it. That's all he do, all day long."

"Poor old sawl, that's all 'e 'av got to do."

"Mammy," her voice had lost its gaiety and self-confidence. She was a young creature, obscurely frightened. "I wish I wasn't going down there."

Mrs. Tom spoke sharply. "Why? 'Av Gray been talkin' to yer?"

"No, Gray's close as anything, but what is it?"

"Oh, my dear, 'tis nothing but 'er fancy. There, go along, I bain't going to tell 'ee."

"I don't need for Gray to tell me Wastralls is a whisht old house for young maidens."

"My dear," said Mrs. Tom reasonably, "you'll be able to run 'ome any time to see us and yer auntie is goin' to give yer twenty pound; good money, 'edn't it?"

"Iss, well, I know that's all right," returned Richbell soberly. Sabina's open-handedness had put many a pleasure in her way, nevertheless instinct warned her against the place and she was Mrs. Tom's own child.

"Well, why don't you like goin' there?"

"I don't feel I like," she hesitated, lowering her voice, "I don't feel I like Uncle Leadville."

"There's no 'arm in 'im," encouraged the mother, "although 'e do look downy. Any'ow 'e's nothing to do with you. You'll be with yer auntie."

"Iss." The girl could not put into words her feeling that Leadville being fundamentally different from the easy-going folk among whom she had hitherto lived was vaguely alarming. "Well, he never look yer straight in the face."

"My dear, that's the way of'n. 'E 'edn't goin' to take no notice of you."

"Mammy!" She put her young arms round her mother's neck, so proving herself the taller by a couple of inches, "I wish you would go down with me to-morrow morning—I don't feel I like goin' by myself."

Who could resist Richbell, when Richbell changed from gay defiance to entreaty? Not Mrs. Tom! "Well, I'll go down with you. I shall be able to see your auntie the same time. I'll light up the fire before I go and the kettle'll be boiling by the time I get back. Come, my dear," she turned and walked up the trim path of sea-gravel edged with quartz, "let's be goin' in, else we shan't get up early in the mornin'."

December dawns are late and though, as Mrs. Tom had feared, the tired family slept until after cockcrow, morning had not broken when she and Richbell hurried down between the tamarisks, silver-grey with frost, and in at the yard gate of Wastralls. George Biddick, crossing from the shed to the stables nodded a greeting, but otherwise the yard was deserted.

Mrs. Tom called after him. "Pretty rough wind last night."

"Iss," he said with a gesture towards the roof. "I see it's blawed off one of the tiles and broke a pane of glass."

"You won't be able to get it mended now till after Christmas," said Mrs. Tom sympathetically. She pressed her face against the window, peering in. "No one up yet?"

"Well, they didn't go to bed till late last night," Richbell reminded her.

"Dessay they've overslept theirself!" Mrs. Tom took the door key from under a stone where Sabina had hidden it in readiness. During the night, with one of the rapid changes to which that coast is liable, the wind had dropped. Frost had stilled the thousand voices of the earth and, in the house, doors hung without creak or movement and the chimneys were hushed. As she crossed the threshold Mrs. Tom shivered.

"'Tis a whisht old place," she said, "and cold."

Her voice came back to her, echoed from the passage. "Cold!"

"There always seems some one in the passage," she said whimsically, "some one who wants to talk and can only say what we do say."

Richbell tried the echo. "Mammy!" she said and "Mammy" was whispered back to her.

Mrs. Tom hung her cloak behind the door and turned upon the world a business face. "Here's the matches," she said, taking them from the mantelshelf, "and you'll find a candle in the linhay there. Now light up the fire quick and make a cup of tea and I'll run in and see if yer auntie's awake."

Exaggerating the companionable sound of her steps, she went down the passage. So dark was it that she guided herself with a hand to the wall, finding thus the stairs, the turning that led into the other part of the house and, eventually, the door of the justice-room. At this she knocked.

Receiving no answer she hesitated for a moment and then knocked again. "She's sleepin' well this mornin'," she told herself. "I believe she was fair beat yesterday with all that bread-makin' and Leadville so teasy; funny, though, 'at I can't make 'er 'ear."

She rattled cheerfully at the handle and, under her preoccupation with Sabina, was the feeling that Hember chambers were full of light and sound and that presently she would return to them. Never had she felt so strongly the brooding oppression of the old house.

"S'bina! S'bina!" she called and pushed open the door. "Pretty time o' day this to be in sleepin'," and her voice, dauntingly loud, filled the room. For a moment she stood to listen. Another voice should have answered her, should have come to her, reassuringly, out of the gloom.

"How be gettin' on, S'bina?" she faltered. From down the passage came sounds of human nearness: Richbell was moving about in the kitchen and the fact that the girl depended on her for direction stiffened the other's courage. Pulling herself together she crossed the threshold. Once in the room, however, and she was momentarily at a loss. As day still lingered below the eastern hills, to pull the dimity curtains apart would not further matters. Her hand went to the pocket of her white apron and, in a loud, would-be-cheerful tone, she went on talking the while she struck a match. "You always seem to be able to sleep towards the mornin', don't 'ee? Iss, and we've overslept ourself this mornin'; well, we couldn't expect any other after yesterday. 'Twas a lot to think about if not much to do. I've brought Richbell down this morning. She didn't care to come by 'erself so I told 'er I'd come with 'er; and, while she was makin' your cup of tea, I thought I'd come and 'av a little chat and tell yer 'ow we got on last night."

She had been in the justice-room many a time, had sat gossiping with Sabina while she rested, had listened to her complaints of the ache in those legs which were no longer there; but, in spite of the familiarity of the place, as she reached for the candle, her chatter ceased for very fear. If only the wick would catch, but it was tallow, thick and slow to ignite. Before the flame was more than a blue glimmer she was holding it up and peering below it at the bed, gazing with a premonition of what she would find. As she said afterwards, "I thought what I should see."

Nevertheless, though instinct had warned her, she was unprepared. "Oh, my dear sawl she's gone!" she cried and, with confirmation, her fear passed.

"S'bina! S'bina!" she cried, the tears starting. "Speak to me! It can't be true!" Laying her hand upon the brow she felt the unmistakable chill of death. "'Owever on earth did it 'appen?"

The sounds of Mrs. Tom's grief reached Richbell as she put a match to the heap of tamarisk twigs with which she had filled the grate. She sat back on her heels in amazed suspense. What ailed her mother? To hear her give way openly to emotion was unknown to her sixteen years. Trembling she ran out down the passage.

"Whatever is the matter with you, mammy?"

Mrs. Tom was clinging to the green post at the foot of the stairs. Leaning her face on its square top she was weeping for her friend. Next to husband and children Sabina had been dearest. The bond had seemed unbreakable, a thing to trust in, until for her, too, the evening should darken into night.

"Oh, my dear, your poor auntie's gone."

The girl's eyes, which had been merely questioning, filled with terror. To discover that in the midst of life we are in death, shakes the confidence of youth. With a little cry she crept into her mother's arms and her tears, the easy tears of girlhood, ran over her round checks and mingled with those of the older woman.

The needs of the occasion were grim and, after the first burst of grief, Mrs. Tom pulled herself together and, wiping her eyes on her apron, sent a call up the wide stair, a call, which echoing through the empty chambers and down the passages found Byron in his heavy sleep, a call which brought him back to consciousness.

"Leadville! Leadville!"

Who was crying in that lamentable voice? He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of inflamed eyes. Who was calling to him so dolefully out of the darkness of the lower rooms? Not Sabina?

"What is it? I'm comin'," he answered in his rough bass but he did not move. The shadow of grief, rising from below had fallen on him and he was reluctant. Out of the torpor of exhaustion he had brought a bemused mind; and, though disaster threatened, he was not yet aware of the form which it must take. Sitting on the edge of the bed and staring at his knees, it dawned on him that he was still in his workaday clothes. This surprised him and further stamped the morning as unusual.

"Leadville! Leadville!" cried the voice and he found its unhappiness irritating. "Are 'ee dead up there, too?"

"Dead? No. Can't 'ee wait a minute, man must dress."

He had slept on the outside of the bed and, though the yielding feathers marked where he had lain, the clothes were undisturbed. He knew, though without as yet understanding why, that he must be careful. Everything must be as usual. Hastily pulling the clothes from the bed he threw the room into disorder.

He had taken off his boots and his feet in their grey woollen wear fell noiselessly on the drugget. Upon the group at the foot of the stairs he came unexpectedly and, so coming, waited for a moment in fear and trembling. Mrs. Tom, lifting her voice to send yet another summons echoing aloft, presently caught sight of him. In the justice-room a dim light showed. She did not speak but pointed over her shoulder.

"Well," he quavered, aware of the dim light, "whatever's all this fuss about?"

"I dunno' ow to tell yer," returned Mrs. Tom. "'Tis awful thing. Poor S'bina's gone."

"Gone?" His voice rang out full of incredulity and, pushing past, he walked quickly into the bedroom. "What d'yer mean?"

The man's concern, if not his surprise, was genuine. Sabina's death assured, he could think of her as a tried and loyal comrade, dwell on her many virtues, mourn her as, whatever her shortcomings, she had deserved. Memories, kind and gay and casual, crowded into his mind. Though he might be glad that she was gone, he would miss her. Mrs. Tom, jealous for her friend and, with the accumulated knowledge of years to breed suspicion, weighed his words and considered his manner. Bitterly would she resent any failure on his part to render unto Sabina the conventional marks of grief. But Leadville did more. He showed real feeling, a sorrow that was unmistakably sincere.

She followed him into the dead woman's presence and together they went up to the bed. As the man, stooping towards Sabina, gathered the meaning of her immobility, of her sculptured calm, his voice rang out in a cry of grief and longing, a cry which lightened Mrs. Tom's heart of its suspicion.

"S'bina! Oh, my dear, speak to me. Whatever shall I do, whatever shall I do without yer?" He turned with an appeal to the other's womanly knowledge. "Be yer sure she's gone? Titch 'er 'ands and see whether they'm cold or not."

Mrs. Tom laid her hand on fingers already growing rigid. "Iss, my dear, she's gone right enough, I'm afraid."

He covered his face, breaking suddenly into gulping and ugly grief. The last doubt that had harboured in Mrs. Tom's mind blew out to sea. After all, Leadville 'wasn't a bad feller, 'e 'ad 'is feelin's!'

"Terrible job to be took away like this," he gasped after a few minutes, "and she all by 'erself too."

"Aw, poor sawl, iss," agreed Mrs. Tom, "but she's lookin' 'appy and peaceful. I believe she must 'ave died in 'er sleep and didn't know nothin' about it."

Leadville looked at her anxiously and his heart was in the question: "You don't think she suffered any pain, do you?"

"Why, look at 'er. You can see she didn't. If she 'ad suffered 'er face 'ud 'av been quite drawn. But there she is, lookin' so peaceful as a lamb." Her tears flowed again. "We shall all miss her. She was a good sawl."

"I dunno whatever I shall do without 'er."

"My dear life, 'tis nothing but right you should feel it so."

"Well, nobody knew what a good wife she's been to me. I 'adn't 'ad a penny to bless myself when she married me, but since then I 'aven't wanted for nothing. Never an angry word between us."

"Poor sawl, too."

"'Twas 'ard on the missis losin' 'er laigs but after that she never complained. She made the best of everything."

From the world beyond the justice-room, the world of living people and the everyday, came sounds of movement. Richbell, left in the passage, had returned to the kitchen and, once there, had mechanically resumed her work. Come life, come death, breakfast must be prepared.

"Come out now," said Mrs. Tom, the odour of 'fry' being wafted to her nostrils, "and 'av a bit of breakfast, Leadville. I'm sure you'll be wantin' it."

The man shook his head. "I don't feel I want any. I'd rather go out on the cliff by myself. Tidn't like she's dead to me and I must get used to it." He followed Mrs. Tom out of the room but his eyes were so dim he stumbled as he went.

"Well, she's dead right enough. 'Ow it 'appened I dunno. She seemed quite all right yesterday. She might 'av been a bit tired but what was that? I'm afraid," she looked at him thoughtfully, "I'm afraid, as she died suddint, we shall 'av to 'av an inquest."

Byron was on his way to the porch but at the word 'inquest' he stopped and, though Mrs. Tom dismissed the thought indignantly, her heart had said to her, "'E don't want no inquest."

"What do we want an inquest for, after doctor been tendin' 'er so long?"

"Did doctor say that she might die off quick like this?"

"'E was 'ere yesterday and seen 'er." Leadville was trying to remember. "I can't call to mind 'zactly what 'e said but 'e didn't give me a word of encouragement."

"'E knaw better than we do," said Mrs. Tom, musingly. "Did S'bina seem poorly after I went 'ome last night?"

Leadville constrained himself to answer as if the elucidation of the mystery were of as much moment to him as to her. "I don't think I took much notice of 'er but she wadn't very special. After you went she got the supper and, as soon as she'd eat it, went off to bed."

Mrs. Tom nodded with, however, an irrepressible doubt. "Wonder what made 'er go so early?"

"I dunno I'm sure." He spoke without considering whether what he asserted was in accordance with the facts. Mrs. Tom's questions were irritating him, they were like the buzz of flies on a hot day. "I didn't stay up very late. In fact we was both to bed by ten."

Mrs. Tom was careful not to look at him. She and Richbell, standing at their gate in the small hours, had seen a light in Wastralls. If the Byrons were abed who then was up? Perhaps Sabina, feeling unwell, had gone in search of a remedy. That was possible, of course, indeed quite likely. Not until later did Mrs. Tom remember that the light had been stationary. If Sabina had been seeking medicine or a hot-water bottle she would have been carrying a candle.

"Well, there's a lot of things to be done," she said, non-committally. "Can you tend to 'em?"

He shook his heavy shoulders, as if he would have shaken off something unwelcome. He would like to have told her he had not slept much the previous night but that was out of the question. "Oh well, you must leave me go out and think it over first," he said, making for the door, "I'll tell yer when I come back."

Death in a household, particularly sudden death, brings a rush of work. Mrs. Tom, realizing that the brunt of this must fall on her, as the wife of Sabina's nearest relative, was thankful to see that Richbell had made the tea and fried some bacon. She drew her chair to the table and sat down, sat down with the quick lamentable thought that here Sabina would never sit again. The thought flashed up into poignancy and passed. She must not think of it now, for there was work to be done.

"Now, my dear," she said, when they had eaten and the little breathing-space, between the knowledge of calamity and the girding up of loins, was at an end, "Now, my dear, you must go 'ome. 'Tis no place for you 'ere."

"Iss, mammy." The lively self-assertive girl was become pliant to her mother's hand.

Mrs. Tom made her dispositions. "'Tis a pity that Gray went to Gentle Jane, but Leonora must run over and bring 'er back—better be all together now. After you've gived the children their breakfast, Rhoda better run up to Cottages and ask Mrs. Bate to come down and set your auntie forth; and tell Aunt Louisa Blewett to come down and bring 'er machine with 'er to do the mournin's. Let Loveday go to St. Cadic and tell your Aunt Bessie to come down to 'elp us; and now I'll go and get the room straight."

"Is there anything else you'd like for me to do?" Richbell spoke in tones so subdued they hardly rose above a whisper.

"You can take my black things out of the box and ask your father to bring 'em down and if there's anything else I want, when 'e comes back 'e'll tell yer."

"Aren't you coming home?" Hember without mother would be unspeakably dreary.

The girl's tone, resigned yet unhappy, touched Mrs. Tom's heart. For a moment practical matters were put aside. "Now you mustn't go worryin' yerself," she said, her glance warm and motherly. "Yer auntie's 'ad a 'ard struggle, so it's a 'appy release she's gone. She's taken out of a world of trouble."

"Well, mammy, I can't help grievin'," protested the girl, her tears rising. "It seems so sudden."

"'Twas one good thing she died off in her sleep and didn't know nothing about it. It's our loss but her gain."

"But mammy, I think 'tis awful to be dead. Makes me creep."

"Dead? You mustn't think she's dead. I feel she's livin'. She's up there tellin' them everything about we down 'ere. She's 'appy and busy. No more tears. She've 'ad 'er share."

The girl was only anxious to be comforted. "Well, if that's what's she's doing, we didn't ought to grieve, we ought to be glad she's gone." Her little face lost its pinched expression and she moved more briskly. Nevertheless when, the breakfast dishes being cleared away, she was free to go, she went as if glad to leave this house to which she had come so unwillingly and which had at once proved itself the 'whisht' place of her imagination.

As she went up the road she looked back once or twice and each time she quickened her steps. The promise of dawn was brightening the east and in the bay some big sooty-plumaged birds could be dimly discerned, their web-feet set firmly on the very edge of the tide. A light was twinkling in the many panes of Wastralls kitchen, tiny glimmers that, affecting only the one spot, made the sombre outlines more darkly impressive. A part of the haunted night, what had happened there so lately gave it to the young girl's imagination an extra touch of gloom. With a quick shudder she set her face towards the lights of home.

CHAPTER XVII

Leadville left the house with a hasty but heavy step. He had slept but little and his fall the previous evening had jarred and bruised him. Carrying his head even more forward than was his wont, he went along the shaly path which led, a little circuitously, up Dark Head. At another time he would have made the ascent without realizing he was not on level ground but, that morning, he stubbed his feet against the grey rock and stumbled over the cushions of sea-thrift. He was so tired, so stiff, that he, who had the sure-footedness of the mountain sheep, slipped on the smoother surfaces and came near to falling. When, at a turn in the path, a lew corner presented itself, an angle of rock about a few hardy plants, he uttered a grunt of satisfaction. Why should he go farther? Here was a refuge from the questioning of the women, a spot where he could rest. The cliff wall rose between him and the north and, when the southerly sun rose, its first beams would fall on that high but sheltered rock. He flung himself down and, as he lay on the tussocks of colourless grass, seemed in his weather-worn clothes as much a bit of natural waste as the oreweed drying on the rocks below.

The day was mild, one of those we owe to what we are told is not the Gulf Stream but something which has a similar effect. In the growing light the sea shone dimly, a pale expanse of quiet water. On the man's harassed mind the peace of the scene had, as ever, a soothing effect. His glance roved over the treeless country, the rare farmsteads with each a group of grey outbuildings, the Cornish moors and the far range of rounded hills. What he saw was dear to him as it was familiar. Those well-known slopes, swelling softly till they reached Rowtor and Brown Willy, sinking to the abrupt black rocks that edged the sea! Byron seemed to himself a part of that on which he looked. Wastralls had made ham. He was, as he had said in his youth, a clod of Wastralls earth, dust which at the appointed time would fertilize the land to a fresh harvest. To be of it and, at the last, to go back to it, was what he had asked of life. He had been obsessed by one large and simple idea and, in his extreme weariness, he returned to it, looking across the land he loved, lifting his eyes to the good sun. He was outwearied and he longed for warmth and comfort. The shelter of his corner promised forgetfulness. The land lay green about him, the sea sang its thunderous lullaby and sleep was in the soft touch of the air, the thin warmth of the December sun. Pillowing his shaggy head upon his arm, the man drifted from the manifold irritations, the aches and pains of life, into that state which doth so mysteriously resemble death.

For at least two hours, Leadville, warmed through by sunbeams and the sea-scented air, lay deeply asleep. When he stirred the red was in his cheek and his eyes were clear. He looked about him and remembered. He had killed Sabina and now must bear himself so that none should know or even suspect. It would, he thought, be easy enough. She had been a good wife to him and, as she was actually dead, he might show, without tempting Providence, a natural grief. His walk as he went down the hill was brisk and purposeful. To the dead their hour, a sob and a black coat; when they were underground it would be the turn of the living. From the future opening before him, Leadville turned his eyes. Sabina should have her due!

Before Rhoda, full of the importance of her message, reached Cottages, its inhabitants were agog. A little bird had carried the news of Mrs. Byron's death and those whom it least concerned were discussing it. Mrs. Bate, who lived in the end cottage of the hamlet, a tiny two-roomed place, had for many years been Stripper, or, as some call the woman who prepares the dead for their last journey, 'Nurse' to the community. As soon as a death occurred, she was sent for and her duty it was not only to strip the clothes from the corpse and array it in fine linen, but to receive the many visitors and conduct them, in turn, to the death-chamber. On the day of the funeral her position was one of some importance. She was the undertaker's right hand. Indeed, the responsibility for the smooth working of the arrangements rested on her rather than on him.

When the news reached Mrs. Bate, therefore, that Mrs. Byron of Wastralls had died during the night, she knew that she would be wanted. Though the possessor of a handsome jolly face she was given to timid fears and, after raking out her fire, she went across to Mrs. Blewett, the seamstress, better known as 'Aunt Louisa,' to have one of these resolved.

"Mrs. Rosevear sure to be there," she said anxiously, "and she could set Mrs. Byron forth if her liked; but she wouldn't do anybody out of a job, would she?"

'Aunt Louisa,' slim and, in spite of the wear and tear of life still graceful, was fitting the cover to her machine. "She bin poor 'erself," she said encouragingly. The two old bodies had lived in the same parish for seventy years, and as next-door neighbours, for thirty. She knew that Fanny Bate, in spite of her large well-covered frame and square face, found it difficult to stand alone.

"I wouldn't miss doing this," said Mrs. Bate, her old blue eyes still anxious, "for all the golden sovereigns in Trevorrick. When Judgment Day come, there won't be many from 'ere but what will look up and thank me for settin' 'em forth."

"If you set 'em forth," said Aunt Louisa, remembering the many shrouds her fingers had fashioned, "I've made the things for 'm."

"Iss, but I've nursed and tended them as well as set them forth," she would not admit the other's claim to a share in the work of preparing the neighbourhood for burial. "And I think of their souls, too, poor things. 'Tis better to look after their souls than their bodies. 'Tis an awful thing to die not being prepared to meet God. I sing hymns till they'm happy and not afraid to die. I 'ope 'tis all right with poor Mrs. Byron's soul," she paused, a little troubled by Sabina's eminent unpreparedness, "but she was always a good-livin' woman and God is merciful to the last."

Aunt Louisa turned her quiet grey eyes on the other woman and in them was a suggestion from, which Mrs. Bate shrank in pretended ignorance. "Must 'av died pretty and suddent!" said the seamstress.

"Well, I think she has been ailing for some time, she 'aven't been vitty since her accident!" Louisa was so 'forth-y,' but it didn't pay to say all you thought. She, herself, daring enough before the event, knew that 'a still tongue make a wise 'ead.'

"Mrs. Bate!" cried a voice from the road, where old Hawken, rather staggery about the feet, was making shift to carry an armful of fodder to his donkey. "Rhoda's comin' up the lane. I believe she want you."

"Thank you, Mr. 'Awken," said the old woman modestly, "but there's more'n me'll be wanted at Wastralls."

"You're the Stripper, bain't you? and you'll be wanted first. Iss, first and last."

The child, a sensible as well as pretty little girl of ten, came quickly from the direction of the sea. She was shocked to think that kind Auntie S'bina was dead. She was also impressed with the importance of her errand. Seeing Mrs. Bate at Aunt Louisa's door, she ran to her across the little green. "Mammy says, please will you come down to Wastralls at once and will Aunt Louisa come too and bring her machine."

"I'll be prettily glad to do anything for Mrs. Byron and your mammy," responded the latter, a little anxiously, "but I can't carr' the machine, my dear."

Old Hawken who had lingered, curious to hear what passed, seized the opportunity. "If you will wait a minute," he volunteered, "I'll put the ole dunkey in and drave 'ee down."

"Well, 'tis braäve and kind of 'ee, Mr. 'Awken."

"Time like this, everybody must do all they can to 'elp," and, as Mrs. Bate saw her neighbour drive off in the donkey-cart, she regretted that laying out the dead did not necessitate the transport of large and heavy parcels; but it was like Louisa, so it was, she got the best of everything and always had since she was born wrong side of the blanket and everybody allowed it was the right!

Meanwhile Mrs. Tom, her heart heavier than it had been for many a year, had set Sabina's room in order and removed the evidences of humble use. She took up the cocoa-jug, looked into it, then carried it away and put it on the upper shelf in the linhay. With the certainty of knowledge, she went to the bottom drawer of the tall-boy for the clothes in which Mrs. Bate was to 'set her forth'—'no need to stream up anything, S'bina 'ad 'er clothes ready, stockings, night-cap and all!' As Mrs. Tom hung them over the back of a chair, a belated tear ran down her cheek and she glanced from their smooth white folds to the still figure on the bed. A lifetime of friendship! She caught her breath in a sob but, because she had so much to do, tried to check her grief. Yet when, a little later, Tom brought the black dress for which she had asked, he found her sitting on the floor, her head against the chair and her tears falling unheeded on the hem of her friend's shroud.

"Why, mother, dear!" he cried with a quick rush of tenderness. "I shouldn't take on like that. You know we've all got to die sometime."

She put out her arms to him like a forlorn and sorrowful child. "I can't 'elp feeling of it. You know we was schoolgirls together."

"Well, well, my dear, she's gone. I'm pretty and sorry but still she's better off. We 'av got each other still and we need to be thankful for't."

Mrs. Tom clung to him. "I knaw. I've got a lot to be thankful for. I've got you and the childern, but to-day I can't 'elp thinkin' about 'er. What 'appy times we've 'ad together."

"I knaw, my dear." He held her close, closer than was his wont in prosperous times and, with her head on that middle-aged shoulder, Mrs. Tom wept till the rush of grief was spent.

When the women whom she had summoned made their appearance, however, though red-eyed, she had herself in hand. She and Mrs. Con Rosevear being the nearest relatives, the family, only too well aware of the latter's slatternly ways, would look to Mrs. Tom for direction. And she was ready for them. Experience had instructed her in the routine to be followed and, before long, Mrs. Bate with a bowl of hot water, with flannel, soap and scissors, had shut herself into the justice-room: Mrs. Con with the bustling help of a sister-in-law, Mrs. William Brenton of Cumean, was turning out the big parlour; and Aunt Louisa, like an embodied shadow, was slipping from room to room in search of mourning apparel. Mrs. Byron had stores of black material, in the piece and made up, and to the old woman was deputed the congenial work of looking for it. Her sewing machine had been given pride of place on the side-table in the kitchen and, already, the other was growing dark with the first results of her search, with crape, black ribbon, cottons, buttons, etc., a heterogeneous assortment. When Leadville returned from Dark Head, the work of preparation was so far forward, that the women, calling a halt, had gathered for a mid-morning cup of tea.

When life has passed the adventurous stage—if it ever does—it turns to the doings of others for its spice; and, in that homely room, about which were scattered so many black garments that the place looked as if draped for some funereal occasion, the five women discussed the dead.

"'Tis very good of 'ee, Aunt Louisa, to come at once to 'elp wi' the blacks, when I knaw you be always slagged wi' work," said Mrs. Tom, with the usual sweet civility of the Cornishwoman.

"Well, my dear," returned Mrs. Blewett, "at a time like this anybody 'ud do anything. I'd go on me 'ands and knees for Mrs. Byron. I've knawed 'er ever since she was a child and 'ave always done 'er sewin' for 'er. Why, some time back, I made the clothes to set 'er forth with! But I thought she was worth a hundred dead ones. Never thought, as I should live to make up 'er mournin's."

"She's lookin' so natural now," said Mrs. Bate, who had brought from the death-chamber the night-cap which had been put in readiness. The lacy frills of it were limp with the sea-damp and Mrs. Tom had offered to iron and goffer it. She was glad to do for her friend this last of many kindnesses.

"Aw, poor soul, she's at rest now. Gone out of a world of trouble. She's best off where she's to," said Aunt Louisa, in tones of conventional grief.

"I wonder," began Mrs. William Brenton, who being in Trevorrick on a week-end visit to her sister-in-law, had accompanied her and was delighted to find herself in the midst of such interesting occurrences. Living at Polscore, and that only since her marriage, for she was a woman from up-country, she was not deeply versed in local gossip. She endeavoured to remedy this by asking questions but, as she was not noted for discretion, her gleanings were apt to be scanty. "I wonder if she've left any will?"

Neither Mrs. Tom nor Mrs. Constantine looked up. The latter felt that after Leadville's death the farm should come to one of her tall sons, to Freathy, Ern or Tremain; while Mrs. Tom was sure that her girls, being Mrs. Byron's favourites, had the prior claim.

"You ought to know if anybody do," said Aunt Louisa, snipping the thread of a finished hem and turning her grey eyes on Mrs. Tom. The neat precise old woman gave a general impression, in colourless face, smooth scanty braids and capable hands, of greyness. She was like water overhung by trees, a limpid stillness in which shadows moved.

"Well," said Mrs. Tom carefully, "I don't know. S'bina was very close wi' money matters. She never let on to any one what she intend doin'."

Aunt Louisa's clear eyes moved thoughtfully from face to face. With the exception of Mrs. Tom she was far and away the cleverest woman in Trevorrick and she applied her wits—as do all of us, from scholar to ale-house gossip—to gathering stores of useless information. "Never 'eard tell of any will," she said, beginning to tack the seams of a skirt for little Rhoda, "and I never knawed of any lawyer comin' 'ere to do anything about a will."

"What you don't knaw, my dear," said. Mrs. Bate, tactless but admiring, "is good for sore eyes;" and in this statement she voiced so conclusively the opinions of all present that the hopes of both Mrs. Con and Mrs. Tom sank. If there were no will Leadville would inherit and there was no reason he should leave it to a Rosevear. In all probability he would marry again and rear a family. Mrs. Tom thought fleetingly of his infatuation for Gray and what might have been.

"Goodness!" said Mrs. Brenton cheerfully. "There'll be pretty ole capers if everything's left to Mr. Byron. 'E'll be turnin' the place upside down. 'E'll be tellin' us all 'ow to farm. Continuous croppin' 'e call it, but my maister say 'better leave things as they be and not make work when there's no need for it.' 'E don't believe in these new-fangled ways."

"I think," said Mrs. Con uneasily, "'e'll teel all those new things 'e's craikin' about and I wonder what Old Squire would say if 'is 'ead was above the earth."

"Some do say 'is 'ead's up now." Mrs. Tom's smile was faint, a twitch of the lips, a recognition of Mrs. Con's tremulous outlook. "I think if Leadville was to start 'is sugar-beet and terbacker teelin' 'e 'ud 'av a 'ot time wi' Old Squire!"

"Mrs. Byron," began Aunt Louisa and stopped to re-thread her needle. She spoke as if her mouth were full of pins. Use had made her able to speak through a bristling chevaux de frise while age made her forget whether the pins were there or not. "Mrs. Byron is the livin' image of Old Squire as I remember'n." She glanced at his elbow-chair, wide and built with a cunning hand. Pushed against the wall, its red cushions were hidden under billows of black material, but this drapery only made its outlines the more regal. None of those who looked but thought of the man for whom it had been made as still dimly occupying it. More than one had a glimpse of silver hair above a masterful face and caught the faint sound of an imperious voice. "I seed'n when 'e was in 'is coffin," continued Louisa, recalling further a mountainous bulk. "I warn't higher than the table when 'e died but I can remember mother takin' me in."

"'E was a great big man, wasn't 'e?" asked Mrs. Brenton.

"A lickin' great feller!" Aunt Louisa basted as she talked and the other women, most of them younger by a generation, listened with interest. With the exception of Mrs. Brenton they knew why the old woman's mother had been anxious to imprint the features of Freathy Rosevear on her child's plastic memory. "When he was dead," continued Aunt Louisa, who in her neatness, her precision, was as unlike her sire as any child might be, "they couldn't get his coffin overstairs. They had to take it up in pieces and put'n together in's bedroom. And then they couldn't get'n out. They 'ad to take out the big winder in the end of the 'ouse and slide'n down over the boords. I can remember as if 'twere yesterday. 'E was so 'eavy they had the bier out from Stowe to carr'n; for 'twas more'n the bearers could manage."

"And S'bina was like 'im," said Mrs. Con curiously. She had heard the tale of Old Squire's funeral before but that his granddaughter resembled him so closely was new to her.

"The spit of 'n. 'E was a great big red-faced feller with flamin' 'air which was always stickin' up on end and 'is voice, it was like it was going to wake the dead."

"I wonder at your mother takin' you to see 'im, an old dead man. It don't 'ardly seem the thing, do it?" said Mrs. Brenton looking round at the others but finding them, to her surprise, dull and unresponsive.

"She wanted for me to remember what 'e was like," said the old woman placidly and Mrs. Bate, who had received the night-cap from Mrs. Tom and was absent-mindedly smoothing the strings, smiled to herself a little wistfully. She was old now, but she had been a handsome maid. If only she had been alive when Old Squire was in his prime!

"I shouldn't think," said Mrs. Con, putting down her empty cup and leaning both elbows comfortably on the table, "that S'bina's coffin would cost so much, now, without laigs? Twill be all that the shorter and 'twont be so 'cavy for the men to carry. I should think one set of bearers 'd do."

"Surely," urged Mrs. Brenton, "they'll make it the right size? Twill look funny to 'av a dumpy coffin."

"'Ere, Betsy, you can tack this seam," said Mrs. Tom, who, seeing no reason for any one to be idle, was apportioning the sewing. This done she spoke with authority. "They must make S'bina's coffin the right length; for when 'er laigs was cut off she wouldn't 'av them throwed away. 'When I'm buried up,' she say, 'I'll 'av me laigs with me. Anybody can't rise up on the Last Day without laigs!'"

The others showed surprise. "Very thoughtful of 'er, I'm sure," said Mrs. Brenton.

"No," said Aunt Louisa in her pin-muted voice, "'twouldn't be decent to go before 'er Maker wi'out laigs. But I didn't know she 'ad 'em. Wherever's she kept 'em to?"

"Well, she got 'em in a box, salted away. She brought 'em 'ome from the 'orspital and they'm in the li'l parlour in the cupboard. I think we'd better get'n out against Mr. 'Enwood come to measure 'er."

"She'll make a vitty corpse, after all," said Mrs. Con, who had been haunted by the thought of that legless body and who would now be able to think of her cousin as made whole by the restoration of the carefully preserved limbs. Her person, large and soft, the person of a big eater and small doer, heaved in a gusty sigh of satisfaction. "Nights I've lied thinkin' when she die there'd 'av to be something put in the coffin to keep 'er from boompin' up and down."

Mrs. Bate got up. "I'll just put on 'er cap and then you can all come in and see 'er. She's the fines' body I've set forth for many a day. Some fat body, too, she be, some 'andsome body, fat as butter."

Before the others could take advantage of this invitation which, with the exception of Mrs. Con they were naturally eager to do, Leadville's step was heard on the linhay flags and he at once became the centre of interest. The corpse could wait but this was their first glimpse of the bereaved. Curiosity was veiled by industry and politeness and like the fates they snipped and stitched.

Fresh from his sleep in the sunshine and ready to do his part, he paused, on his way in, to break his fast. As he ate, the whirr of the sewing-machine caught his ear and at once some of his briskness passed.

"Well, Mrs. Tom, I'm come back," he cried, pulling open the little door. To him, the room, always dark, seemed full of soberly clad women and, between them, he made out masses of black material which, overflowing chairs and tables, lay in discreet heaps on the clean blue floor. The women glanced up with conventional murmurs and he perceived that, for the nonce, it was they who were at home there and not he. "What is there for me to do?"

Isolda put down the child's frock on which she was at work. "I think you better go into Stowe and see Mr. Henwood and tell'n to come out and measure 'er for 'er coffin."

Leadville viewed the task set him with disfavour. "I can't abide that job."

"It bain't a bit of good for 'ee to talk like that, my dear," said Mrs. Tom, as to a fractious child, "you know it's got to be done. As well 'av it done first as last."

"I know that." Traffic in the gruesome ceremonial of death was repugnant to him and he would have liked to take a broom and sweep these women and their blacks out of Wastralls, to clear the place of them and have it once more sweet and clean. "Still 'tis 'ard lines on a poor feller."

"Of course it be but, there, it can't be 'elped. I don't want to bother you more'n I can 'elp; but still there's things as must be seen to."

He stood before her, balancing first on one foot, then on the other.

"Well?" he said.

"There's the funeral and what about the food?"

"Tedn't a bit of good for 'ee to ask me. You must do zactly as you like. You knaw best, better than I do."

"I thought," she pursued, bent on getting his assent to the arrangements she considered should be made, "about 'avin' a 'am and a couple of chicken and a piece of beef and then I thought we'd better 'ave a couple of tarts and white cake and yeller cake: and tea. That will be enough."

"Iss," he said, longing to get away, "well, you know what to do."

"And you'll 'av to go and see doctor to get a certificate before you go down to Mr. 'Enwood. As 'e was 'ere yesterday, 'e may not want an inquest—still you never know."

"Well, I'll see'n."

"What day be yer thinkin' to 'av the funeral?"

Leadville was anxious to have it as soon as possible, but knew that this desire was not one to which he could give utterance. "I can't abear to think of 't," he said, conscious of his audience. "I feel as if I'm waitin' for 'er to come in. 'Tidn't like she's dead, to me."

The women glanced at him kindly. They were sorry for him, a poor forlorn creature, a widow man. "I'm afraid," said Mrs. Tom, regretfully, "we shall 'av to bury 'er up pretty quick. Mrs. Bate think she oughtn't to be kep' longer'n Monday."

"Monday?" cried the man and, for a moment, lifted his heavy lids and stared at her. "You don't mean it? Why it's now Saturday?"

"Well, my dear, she died on a full stomach and you know you can't keep her very long. Still I should be the last to 'urry 'er into 'er grave. We'll see what Mr. 'Enwood say."

Mrs. Con, glad of a moment's respite from the sewing, had been watching the speakers. "What 'av 'ee got on yer face there?" she asked peering, with short-sighted eyes, at a brown smear on the man's forehead, the smear his seal-blooded hand had made the previous evening when wiping away the drops of his fear.

"'E 'aven't washed yet," interposed Mrs. Tom and turned back to Byron. "I've put yer black clothes upstairs on yer bed and there's plenty of 'ot water you can 'av."

"Look like you've got blood there," persisted Mrs. Con, "'av you cut yerself?"

Byron swung over to the little mirror by the range. Across his forehead lay a broad smear, dark brown in hue. Though he recognized it instantly as blood, his forgetfulness of the unimportant past prevented his being able to account for it and superstitious dread swooped on him out of a clear sky.

"I dunno what that is," he stammered, already shaken out of his reasonableness and with a vague recollection of a similar episode on the previous evening. "It do look like blood! 'Owever did it get there?"

"Don't 'ee worry, Leadville," soothed Mrs. Tom and who knows whether her words were accidental or chosen. "There's no mark o' Cain on 'ee, Lorrd be praised."

"Mark o' Cain!" he muttered and Mrs. Tom saw leap into his eyes a questioning terror.

"I expect you've scratched yourself somewhere," she said easily. "Take'n go and wash it off." Pouring hot water into a dipper she offered it to him and Leadville, treading delicately among the heaps of black material, went out. He had brought from Dark Head a clear simplicity of purpose, but now his mind was like a ruffled pool. "Mark o' Cain?" he muttered to himself as he went upstairs. "What do they knaw about it? It's all tommy-rot, they can't knaw anything, 'tis only what they'm surmisin'. Can't trust they women, their tongues is always waggin'. They'll ferret out the last rat that's in the mow."

As he put his hands into the dipper he noticed they were trembling and, with this, his caution began to reassert itself. The women must not be allowed to suspect that there was anything concealed. "If I don't take care," he admonished himself, "I shall find meself in a box. Pretty feller me, to take so much notice o' they. I've done more'n they'll ever bear to think on and 'ere I'm all twitchy because of their silly talk."

After washing his face he examined it in the toilet-glass for any sign of a hurt, but the skin was unbroken.

"I 'aven't cut meself," he said perplexedly, and suddenly the episode of the seal occurred to him. He laughed aloud. "Mark o' Cain indeed! And me, what don't believe in they old ideas! Iss, they'm too fanciful for our day o' livin'." He shook his heavy shoulders. "I mus' pull meself together. I must remember, only thing that's 'appened is that I've lost the missus—poor sawl."

In the room below the women had returned to their work of 'makin' up the mournin's.'

"'E seem rather cut up about it, not like 'e belong to be," commented Aunt Louisa.

"Well, what can 'ee expect," said Mrs. Brenton, "only lostin' 'is wife this mornin'? Can't expect for'm to be bright and cheerful!"

"I don't expect anything," said the old woman, "still you can't 'elp noticin' things."

CHAPTER XVIII

As Leadville on his black stallion turned the corner below Church Town, he met the Wastralls wagon coming back from Stowe with a load of coal and oil. The sight of the teamster, leading his horse as it zigzagged across the sharp ascent, brought the other a sudden tingling realization of power. Yesterday Rosevear had been a hind on his wife's farm and Byron, though ostensibly, blusteringly master, had not been able to dismiss him. Now, opportunity, spruce and debonair, was walking towards him up the wide curve of the road.

Reining in his horse—a gift from Sabina, who liked him to be well mounted—he waited till Jim, this 'proper jump-the-country' was abreast of him.

"The missus is gone!" He was not thinking of Sabina but of the alteration in their relative position.

Jim's face had been as cheerful as his thoughts. Though in workaday clothes he wore them with a holiday air and had adorned his cap with the iridescent wing-feather of a drake. He was in pairing mood and had seen in Stowe 'a lickin' great wardrobe' that he would like for Gray 'if she'd a mind to't.' His nest-building thoughts were scattered by Byron's untimely news and his face lengthened. "Gone?" he repeated. "'E don't say so? Poor sawl! I'm awful sorry. Was it a fit or what was it?"

Byron, impatient to assert himself, ignored the question. Sitting his horse with a touch of swagger he said truculently: "I'll leave yer know I'm maister now."

Jim believed that he had a reason to dislike the speaker and none whatever to avoid a quarrel. Better bad blood between them than that Byron, under the cloak of kinship, should be able to come worrying Gray.

"Iss," he said, accepting the challenge, "missus is 'ardly cold, but still I s'pose you think you'm maister now."

In Byron's fierce eyes was the longing to begin the inevitable fight. The youth, blithe and with his handsome face upturned, was incarnate provocation. One hearty blow and Byron saw the contour of that admirable nose for ever changed.

"When you finish up to-night you can come in," he growled, "and I'll pay you your wages. I don't want you 'ere, on the place, any longer."

Jim did not seem impressed. "I can clear now if you like." It would serve the 'ole hunks' right if he were left with the horse and wagon on his hands.

"An' if yer don't want to 'av yer bones broken," continued the other, pausing on a darkling thought that the sea did not always give up its dead, "you'll clear out of this part altogether."

In Jim's eyes was a little dancing light. "Shen't clear out for the likes of you."

"Well, now, you take this for a warning. If you don't you'll wish you 'ad."

"We'll see about that," and being of those whose spirits rise at the prospect of a fight he smiled. "We'll see who is the best man of the two, me or you."

A grimmer smile was on Byron's face. Knowing his strength he could look forward, past the irritating unpropitious moment, to the happy hour when they should come to grips. "Oo d'yer think's afraid of you, yer banty cock?" he cried, contemptuously, and prepared to ride on.

"If you was as big as a church and tower I ain't afraid," cried the youth after him. As the affair seemed to be hanging fire, he tried a rousing word. "An' if I'm in yer way I shall stay where I'm to."

Byron flashed him a look full of sinister possibilities, the look of one who had taken into consideration that cliffs are sheer and nights dark. "I'll see about that, then."

The prospect of a fight was dwindling into nothingness. "There's people," said Jim, on a last hope, "'ud rather see me than you."

"Any more of your cheek, young sprat, and I'll wring your neck."

But he had realized the countryside would cry shame if he were seen brawling in public while his wife lay dead at home. They would not be blinded to the reason and such knowledge might breed suspicion. He must wait. Grinding his heel into the stallion's side he started at a gallop, leaving Jim disappointed but smiling, for with him, too, it was a case of 'Gay go the Gordons.'

A little annoyance was enough to upset Byron for hours. In a fume of exasperation and bitter feeling he now urged his horse to a speed which drew on him the attention of other wayfarers.

"If 'e ride that rate 'e must be goin' after a doctor. I should think man's missis was goin' to straw—first child, too," said a man from Little Petherick to whom Leadville was a stranger.

"Thiccy feller's Mr. Byron to Wastralls," corrected his companion, "and I know there's no chick nor child there, nor any comin'. 'E do always ride as if Old Nick was after 'un. 'E'll break 'is neck one of these odd days."

The short interview with Rosevear had been unsatisfactory in more ways than one, for the youth's last words had planted a thorn. Not only had he smiled at Byron's threats but his smile, had been of a quality which made the other's blood run cold. Behind it lay assurance, a knowledge he might not divulge but which, like a hidden weapon, was for use at need. The other's jealousy, temporarily in abeyance, stirred and he sought a reason, other than the simple love of fighting inherent in the male, for Jim's smile. Not many cared to try conclusions with the strongest man in the parish. Byron had browbeaten the few who crossed his path, but Jim was game. What had happened to give him confidence? How were matters between him and Gray? That drive into Stowe! The farmer ground his teeth at the thought of it. Was she promised and did Rosevear feel sure of her? A fool for his pains! Such promises were of cobweb stuff. She might promise—his little umuntz—for she did not know, but the end would be the same.

The black stallion was damp with sweat when Byron pulled up at Dr. Derek's freshly painted gate—which in its brightness, its specklessness, was the outward and visible sign of the doctor's tastes! A pathway, gravelled with small white stones and edged with scarlet tiles, led directly to a cream-coloured house, the wide windows of which were brilliantly clean but uncurtained. On the door a highly polished knocker twinkled above a discreetly closed brass letter-flap. Dr. Derek was just returned from his morning round and, though the midday meal was on the table, his constant curiosity with regard to Mrs. Byron, would not allow him to keep her husband waiting. The farmer was, therefore, shown at once into the consulting-room.

The little doctor, round and rosy, was seated before a table of light polished wood. Byron, as he went up the room, gathered an impression of bright glass and metal surfaces, in a well-lighted sunshiny place. So bright was everything, the glass cupboards full of silver implements, the polished woods, the glazed bookcases, that the man, used to low tones within doors, blinked. The high lights of innumerable small objects, the sharply defined pattern of carpet and upholstered chair, confused him and for a moment he stood tongue-tied. At last the difficult words came.

"I've bad news for 'ee, sir."

If that well-regulated organ, which Dr. Derek called his heart, ever varied in its beat this was one of the occasions. He had been convinced that with such injuries as had been inflicted by her accident Mrs. Byron could not recover and, by doing so, she had proved him mistaken. Was it possible that after all...

"Sorry to hear it, Byron. The missus isn't worse, I hope?"

The man breathed heavily. "I'm sorry to tell 'ee, sir, she's gone."

Dr. Derek sat back in his cane elbow-chair. It was a sign, with him, of elation but his face was decorously long. "Dear, dear, you don't say so? How did it happen?"

Byron twisted his hat in his hands. In the meticulously clean room he showed clumsy, weather-browned and out of place. "She wasn't like herself all day, yesterday," he volunteered after a pause, during which Dr. Derek, waiting and knowing he must wait, had occupied himself with a retrospect. No woman could survive such injuries. If it had been one leg or if the head had not been hurt! Her partial recovery had been the effort of a healthy organism, a fine effort but foredoomed. The event had justified his prognosis. "She went to bed early," continued Byron, dragging out his words as if they were creatures with a will opposed to his, "she thought if she did she might be better by the mornin'."

"Did she take her food?"

"She was eatin' like a 'adger last night. I couldn't 'elp noticing it. I thought 'twas a poor sign."

"What did she have for supper?"

Byron recalled, not the articles of food but, the look of the table. "Well, I believe as she 'ad a piece of cold pork."

"Ah!" said the doctor and, behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of the investigator who has run a fact to earth. "And I said she was to be careful about her food. If you remember I recommended a light diet?"

Byron, without understanding it, had noted the satisfaction. "Iss, doctor, but 'er mind was runnin' on pork." He did not know what a light diet was nor that fat pork, when indulged in freely and late at night, was unwholesome.

"A hearty meal," mused the doctor, "and a heart suffering from overstrain. Well—what happened?"