CHAPTER XLII


Three days passed quietly at the Farm, and each morning Dahlia came down
to breakfast, and sat with the family at their meals; pale, with the
mournful rim about her eyelids, but a patient figure. No questions were
asked. The house was guarded from visitors, and on the surface the home
was peaceful. On the Wednesday Squire Blancove was buried, when Master
Gammon, who seldom claimed a holiday or specified an enjoyment of which
he would desire to partake, asked leave to be spared for a couple of
hours, that he might attend the ceremonious interment of one to whom a
sort of vagrant human sentiment of clanship had made him look up, as to
the chief gentleman of the district, and therefore one having claims on
his respect. A burial had great interest for the old man.

"I'll be home for dinner; it'll gi'e me an appetite," Master Gammon said
solemnly, and he marched away in his serious Sunday hat and careful coat,
blither than usual.

After his departure, Mrs. Sumfit sat and discoursed on deaths and
burials, the certain end of all: at least, she corrected herself, the
deaths were. The burials were not so certain. Consequently, we might
take the burials, as they were a favour, to be a blessing, except in the
event of persons being buried alive. She tried to make her hearers
understand that the idea of this calamity had always seemed intolerable
to her, and told of numerous cases which, the coffin having been opened,
showed by the convulsed aspect of the corpse, or by spots of blood upon
the shroud, that the poor creature had wakened up forlorn, "and not a
kick allowed to him, my dears."