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

Ft a