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I was sick of this most doleful expedition; M'Iver was no less, but he mingled his pity for the wretches about us with a shrewd care for the first chance of helping some of them. It came to him unexpectedly in a dark corner of the way through Cladich wood, where a yeld hind lay with a broken leg at the foot of a creag or rock upon which it must have stumbled.
It was not till he made some apparently chance allusion to the superior church-attending qualities of 'our people, that Mrs Yeld drew herself up and changed the conversation by observing that there had been a great deal of rain lately. When the ladies were gone the bishop at once put himself in the way of conversation with the priest, and asked questions as to the morality of Beccles.
A walk of five miles on a damp afternoon through drenched country lanes may be a good specific for a cough in India, but in England it occasionally fails in this respect. Roger was wet through when he reached Yeld. "I shall not be long," said the Captain as they reached the attorney's door. "Don't catch cold, there's a good fellow. Remember your health is very precious."
A few minutes later the tutor was riding smartly to Yeld. During the half-hour occupied by that journey the signs of the approaching storm became manifest. The blue of the sky took a leaden hue, and out at sea an ominous cloud-bank lifted its head on the horizon, while the sultry air seemed to breathe hot on the rider's cheek. He pulled up short at Dr Brandram's door.
He sat down, and for the third time carefully read over the "dear one's" will. "I think," said he at lunch-time, "I will stroll over to Yeld this afternoon and see Mr Pottinger. Roger, will you walk with me? A walk would do you good. You are looking pale, my boy." "Oh, I'm all right," said Roger, whose cough, however, was still obstinate. "I'll come with pleasure."
'All the same I dare say we're improving, like the rest of the world. What beautiful flowers you have here, Mr Carbury! At any rate, we can grow flowers in Suffolk. Mrs Yeld, the bishop's wife, was sitting next to the priest, and was in truth somewhat afraid of her neighbour.
Notice had been given that the priest was to be there, and the bishop had declared that he would be very happy to meet the priest. But Mrs Yeld had had her misgivings. She never ventured to insist on her opinion after the bishop had expressed his; but she had an idea that right was right, and wrong wrong, and that Roman Catholics were wrong, and therefore ought to be put down.
With which pleasant misgivings, he strolled down-stairs. In the library was assembled a small but select audience to do Mr Pottinger, the Yeld attorney, honour. The widow was there, looking pale but charming in her deep mourning and tasteful cap. Roger was there, restless, impatient, and a little angry at all the fuss.
Near at hand rose a sound of laughter. He durst not turn that way, lest he should meet his own children. Far away, through a break in the trees, he could catch a glimpse of the old church at Yeld with the Vicarage beside it, where dwelt the one being he dreaded most his own daughter.
Next day the funeral took place in the family vault at the little churchyard of Yeld. The villagers, as in duty bound, flocked to pay their last respects to the old Squire, whose face for the last twenty years they had scarcely seen, and of whose existence, save on rent-day, many of them had been well-nigh ignorant.
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