286

WINNIE CORSELLIS; OR, DEATH IN THE POT.

“T reckon your lodgers will be flitting after
this,’ said Mr. Wilkins, as he crossed his legs
and rubbed his hands over his knee-breeches, in
the comfortable chair by the hearth. ‘ They won’t
fancy biding here so nigh the sickness.”

“They don’t seem in no wise afeard,” replied
Mrs. Ramsay rather sharply; “but of course they'll
please theirselves whether they go or stay. If
there was cause to think as it would come here,
I'd be the first to bid them go, but there ain’t no
call to frighten folk.”

“ No, no, in course not, and I doubt they can’t
go home. Cholera keeps terrible bad at Dudley,
they do say.”

“Very likely ; it’s evil places is those Black
Country towns for sickness, they’m stived up so
close they can’t but catch the plague one from
another. But it ain’t like that at Beechley.”

“No, to be sure! when will the poor thing up
yonder be buried ?”

“Tonight they tell me. The doctor
were to be done right away; he wouldn’t hear no
talk about mourning nor nothing.
coffin by now.”

“ That’s quick !
got so handy.”

“Ti’s not a parish coffin and yet it is. Mr.
Strong, he said he weren’t going to wait till they
could get one of the regular coffins: bless you!
they’d not have got it by this time to-morrow,
the relieving officer being so far off, and then
him having to give orders to the carpenter. So
Mr. Strong, he says, ‘I will send one up from
Halesworth, and if the parish won’t pay me they
may let it alone, but buried at once she shall be
for the sake of them as is living.’ ”

“ Ah!” said Wilkins, with a slow chuckle ; ‘I
doubt we'll have one coffin less to pay for; the
guardians will never let him have his money.
They’ll say it was onregular, and shift the blame
on him.”

“ Very likely,” said Mrs. Ramsay, knitting fast
as if to work off her indignation. ‘“ Very likely,
but I’d rather have paid for it myself than let the
poor corpse lie.”

“ Does the parson know?”

“ They’ve sent him word: I reckon he'll be up
after the funeral, for he ain’t afeard of nothing.
He'd have been here afore now if he’d known; but
living five mile away, he don’t hear news quick.”

“Well, I think Vl be going; my missus is
terrible eager for to hear if it be true. Has any
more on ’em got it ?”

“Not that I knows of,” said Mrs. Ramsay,
making no effort to detain her visitor. He was
not the first who had come up that morning,
and she was behindhand with her work. So he
sauntered out, stopping to look at the pigs in the

said it

Tt ain’t often parish coffins is

She’s in her |
| killed more than one member of the family ; they

yard, and casting critical eyes on the building of
the recently-erected hay-rick which had sunk a
little on’one side. ‘Then he walked along the road
till he reached the right angle for seeing Lowe’s
cottage, and stood for a minute or two staring hard
at the blinded window upstairs.

“She’s up there, I reckon,” he muttered, and

then having satisfied his desire for news as far as

possible, he turned into his own fields, and went
straying about them, counting the sheep, and exa-
mining the state of the grain crops, till, after a
long round, he reached his own home and told his
wife such scanty details of the exciting event, and
in such small instalments, that it was quite tea-
time before she gathered from him all he knew on
the subject.

Emma Lowe was buried that evening, and there
were many people in the little churchyard to see
the funeral, but they kept well away from the
graye, and looked curiously at the father and
mother who walked behind the coffin, for it was
held in Beechley that the cholera would for certain
go through the house, and report had already

were therefore, considered doomed people, and
were watched as men watch a criminal on his way
to execution.

None of the Hammonds saw the little proces-
sion. Mrs. Ramsay knew when it would pass
the house, and contrived that the parlour tea
should be rather later than usual; so the ladies
were in their own sitting-room, and the children
were playing in the field under Harris’s care.
But she and her servant stood at the gate as the
cart went by. ie

* To think as only this time last night, she were
brought home alive in her master’s trap, and now
they are taking her to her grave in ours! It do
seem quick, Keziah!”

* Ah! poor thing!” replied the tall, big servant, |

“it were terrible quick. JI mind the last time she
went to Beechley Church, she were the talk of the
place! so she is now for the matter of that, but
there’s a deal of difference betwixt now and then.”

“TJ ain’t sure,” said Mrs. Ramsay slowly, “ but
that if I was her mother, I’d almost as lief see her
go now as then. Them laces and flounces couldn't
mean no good to a poor gell as had her own living
to get. There was no telling which road she’d
take when her was over here last, but now may
be the Lord will have took her the right one before
she’d time to go along the other.”

“IT doubt her mind were all set upon the world,”
objected Keziah, who was a strict Baptist, and
having had few temptations, gave little mercy to
the shortcomings of her neighbours. “I doubt
her mind were all set upon the world, and there
weren’t much grace in her poor ignorant soul.”

Se eee eee ee ne er Eee

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