"A glass of wine is not a bad thing at any time," said the old lawyer;
"especially when one is weakened and prostrated by trouble. Try and
drink a little more, my dear."
"It is a matter of opinion, of conviction, of principle," said Mr. John
Heron, grimly, as if he were in the pulpit. "We must be guided by the
light of our consciences; we must not yield to the seductive in
fineness of creature comfort. We are told that strong drink is
raging--" This was rather more than Mr. Wordley could stand, and, very
red in the face, he invited Mr. John Heron to go up to the room which
had been prepared for him.
When that gentleman had stalked out, the old lawyer looked at Ida with
a mixture of dismay and commiseration.
"Not a--er--particularly cheerful and genial person, my dear; but no
doubt Mr. John Heron is extremely conscientious and--er--good-hearted."
"I daresay," assented Ida, apathetically. "It does not matter. It was
very kind of him to come so far to--to the funeral," she added. "He
might have stayed away, for I don't think my father knew him, and I
never heard of him. Is it not time yet?" she asked, in a low voice.
As she spoke, Jessie came in and took her upstairs to her room to put
on the thick black cloak, the bonnet with its long crape veil, in which
Ida was to follow her father to the grave; for in spite of Mr.
Wordley's remonstrances, she had remained firm in her resolve to go to
the church-yard.
Presently the procession started. Only a few carriages followed the
hearse which bore Godfrey Heron to his last resting-place; but when the
vehicles cradled beyond the boundary of the grounds, across which the
dead man had not set foot for thirty years, the cavalcade was swelled
by a number of tenants, labourers, and dalesmen who had come to pay
their last respects to Heron of Herondale; and marching in threes,
which appears to be the regulation number for a funeral, they made a
long and winding tail to the crawling coaches, quite filled the little
church, and stood, a black-garbed crowd, in the pelting rain round the
oblong hole which would suffice for the last bed of this one of the
last of the lords of the dale.
But though all were present to show respect to the deceased squire, the
attention of every man and woman was fixed upon the slight, girlish
figure standing by the side of the grave, her head bent, her great
mournful eye fixed upon the coffin, her hands clenched tightly as they
held together the thick mourning cloak. She looked so young, so almost
child-like in the desolation of her solitude, that many of the women
cried silently, and the rough men set their lips hard and looked
sternly and grimly at the ground.