""Little Kate Kirby," &c.

CHAPTER XX.

PETER SCONE CONSIDERS HIMSELF SLIGHTED.

TH

HE adjourned inquiry into the death of one Adam Halfday, late brother of the Order of St. Lazarus, took place on the following morning, and did not occupy much time, or arouse a great deal of curiosity. Mabel Westbrook gave her evidence calmly, and in a few words related the fact of a large sum of money being due to Adam Halfday, and of her special mission from America to pay it into his hands. He had died from excess of joy, and the county newspapers in due time made out their sensational paragraphs concerning it, with more or less exaggeration of the details.

Mabel had desired to be present, but she was far from strong; yet the morning's duties had wearied her more than she had bargained for, and she was content to sit at the window of her room and watch the fu neral party pass into the churchyard.

It was a strange funeral in its little way, and the villagers and their children marvelled at the stern face of the grandson, and wondered why he looked to right and left of him so much, as if expectant of an interruption to the service, or of a mourner who might be present somewhere in the background, and whom he was anxious to discover. He had not shed one tear over the coffin of his grandfather that those who watched him could perceive. "A rare hard bit of stone that man is," more than one worthy soul at Datchet Bridge declared later in the afternoon. He had more feeling for the living than the dead, for when the excit

able Dorcas, who was sobbing and wailing as though she had lost all that had made life dear to her, pressed to the grave's verge with faltering steps, he drew her arm through his for her support.

There was a third mourner in the churchyard, or at least one man who had craved a holiday, and come his score of miles to do honour to the funeral of old Halfday, and the restless eyes of Brian noticed him amongst the crowd. When the funeral was over this man lingered in the churchyard, watched the process of filling-in the grave, and being naturally loquacious, told the sexton and his man a great deal of Adam's life and his own. He was in the middle of his narrative, when Brian Halfday, having seen his sister to the inn, returned to the graveside, touched the man's arm, and drew him reluctantly away.

"You have had enough of this surely, Peter Scone?" he asked.

"I always said I would see the last of him. I promised myself that I would," replied Peter, shaking his skeleton's head to and fro," and I have done it. I left early this morning in Simpson's pigcart on purpose to see the end of him.'

"I have to thank you for coming all this way," said Brian.

"He should have been buried in the Hospital," said Peter Scone, "and I ought to have had my black wand and walked before him, and the brothers should have followed in good order, and all things been straight and proper. Poor Adam has been cheated out of a fine funeral for a very so-so affair, mind you, Master Brian."

"I could not have given him a grand funeral, Peter, had I had the inclination." "Hasn't he died rich somehow?" said the old man querulously. "Hasn't he come into lots of money?" "Who told you?" "The people about here." "No one else ?" "No one else."

"You have not heard anything of this before to-day, or before your arrival here ?" asked Brian, still doubtfully.

servant of your grandfather's. I knew him when he was a young man; I knew him when he was rich and proud, and hard and hateful; and when he was poor and disagreeable awfully disagreeable."

"Do you remember his son-my father ?" "I should think I did," was the answer. He was a weak ninny, was William. A poor wisp of a fellow, whom nobody cared for. Nobody missed him, but his wife, when he slipped away from Penton one fine morning."

66

How many years is that ago?"

"In the winter of 18-, some sixteen years since," Peter answered promptly. “I mind the time well, because he came to my house the night before, and borrowed three pounds five of me. Ah! I had money to lend then-those who get rich by Adam's death will perhaps remember what Bill Halfday owes me.'

"They shall do so, Peter," said Brian ; "one good turn deserves another."

"Just as one bad turn deserves another," added Peter maliciously.

"That creed is not taught you at St. Lazarus," said Brian.

"It is taught me by a good many things in this world," replied Peter Scone, nodding his head slowly and emphatically, "and what St. Lazarus teaches me is neither here nor there. The man who vexes, wrongs, or slights another must expect vexation, wrong and slight in his turn-that's what I say, sir."

"Then you are too old a man to say it," answered Brian; "think of it again when you get home, Peter, and are at your prayers."

"I'll think of it again over a glass of rum and water if you like," said the old man, with a leer that would have become Silenus on his face.

"You can have what you please."

"Thank you, Master Brian. It has been a dry sort of funeral; not that I have a right to complain," he added, coming to a full stop to express his final opinions on the subject, "for I was not asked to follow Adam. No one asked me-nobody thought

"You will know in time."

"You might have called and told me yourself, Master Brian," said Peter, in the same aggrieved tone of voice. "I was an old

den in my room out of the way of Adam and his crutch, which he did throw about a good Ideal in his tantrums-not even Dorcas Halfday."

"There has been trouble here, Peter; we

have hardly had time to think of anything."

"I dare say-I dare say," said Peter half incredulously, "it is not worth speaking about, any more than I am worth thinking about. I am an old man, and past my time altogether. Why should anybody trouble himself concerning me?"

"Come, Peter, you must not make a grievance of this," said Brian heartily; "it did not strike me that you or any of the brothers would care to follow my grandfather to his grave, and I did not think that you and he had been particularly good friends even."

"We weren't good friends," answered Peter; "he wouldn't be good friends with anybody. But as an old servant of his firm -head cashier was I, Master Brian, before you were born-he respected me as much as he respected anybody at St. Lazarus. And that's not saying a great deal," he added, after a moment's further reflection on the subject.

They had passed from the churchyard across the road into the inn by this time, and Peter Scone made straight for the bar, and gave his order for rum and water to the landlady.

"This gentleman will pay," said Peter; "having come into property, he will stand treat to-day, Mrs. Bennett."

"Let him have what he likes," said Brian to the landlady.

"You'll drink with me?" asked Peter of our hero; "you are not too proud to drink with me, I hope ?"

"I am not in the mood for drinking, Peter."

"Feel too much in the stirrups, perhaps?" "I am not elated at my fortune," said Brian; "I am tired and dispirited, in fact."

"Drink's good for that kind of complaint, I have heard," replied Peter Scone; "you'll take one glass with me, surely?"

"No, I can't drink now," said Brian very firmly.

"Your good health, then, Mr. Halfday," said Peter, gravely surveying Brian over the rim of his glass of rum and water.

Thank you."

"I was going to say, 'and long life to you,' but I can't recommend long life. It's a mistake, and a failure," Peter observed; "it's a heap more of disappointments and

slights when a man's grown too weak to bear it-that's what long life is."

He drank his rum and water after propounding this new theory, and said

"I'll be going back by the carrier, like a mouldy parcel, in half an hour or so. And talking of parcels, I'll take mine, Mrs. Bennett, if you'll be good enough to give it me, and the flowers too."

"Here they are," said the landlady, passing over the bar a large brown-paper parcel, neatly fastened together, and a bouquet of hothouse flowers of considerable proportions. Brian regarded the articles with some degree of astonishment.

"What are you going to do with these ?" he asked,

"I was told to give them into Miss Westbrook's hands with Mr. Angelo Salmon's compliments. They're books for her to read, and this," holding up the bouquet, was cut this morning from the Master's conservatory. It's a beauty, ain't it?" "It is an odd time for a man to send flowers," said Brian frowning.

"They are not for you," replied Peter quickly, "I am to give them to Miss Westbrook."

"The waiter will show you the room. You will find Dorcas there also," said Brian.

"I shall be glad to shake hands with Dorcas a fine, high-spirited girl she is. I always liked her," was Peter's comment here; " she wouldn't have been too proud to drink my health, I know," he muttered to himself.

"You need not stay too long with Miss Westbrook," said Brian, "she is not well to-day."

"Oh! I'll take care," was the querulous reply; "I won't trouble her too long with my society, depend upon it. And yet," he added, "I could talk to her for hours about old times-her father and her grandfatherand all I know about them, couldn't I? That James Westbrook, when he got rich, might have thought of me a bit. I was a faithful servant to an unlucky house, but nobody ever thinks of me."

"You'll find Miss Westbrook up-stairs," said Brian, moving to the door of the inn, and, looking anxiously up and down the road, finally proceeding at a smart pace, and for half a mile, along the highway to Penton.

Suddenly he turned and walked as quickly back to Datchet Bridge.

"He has played me false, as I felt he would do last night," he said, "and I may learn of his treachery at any moment. If he had not stolen away like this! If I could only see him now!"

hand, which closed upon it, and disposed of it in a side pocket in his liberty-coat. "Thank you," said Peter; when the family comes into its rights, I hope the money I lent your father will be paid back, with interest."

"I have no doubt it will," said Brian; my father is in England, and you will see him shortly."

"Your father-in England! Now to think of that."

A

CHAPTER XXI.

BUSINESS POSTPONED.

MAN with a wonderful sense of his own importance, or a man readily disposed to take affront, was Peter Scone, the senior brother of St. Lazarus, for Brian had scarcely delivered himself of his uncomplimentary criticism on the unoffending Angelo, when Peter emerged from the inn into the roadway, with a very sour expression on his withered countenance.

"I'm going back now-and the sooner the better," he said to Brian, as he tottered by him.

"The carrier's cart is not in sight yet." "I can walk down the road and meet it, I suppose," he snarled forth.

Brian.

"I don't want any company," replied Mr. Scone; "talking's bad for me at my time of life."

Brian Halfday took no notice of this hint, but walked on by the side of the old man. "What has the carrier charged you for this journey, Peter?" he asked.

"Two-and-sixpence, because I'm a friend." "I don't like your coming to the funeral at your own expense," said Brian, "and if you will allow me to pay your fare, I shall be obliged."

"I am too poor to say no," answered Peter.

Brian placed half-a-crown in the man's

"It's not worth thinking about at present," was the answer.

"Oh! but it is," cried Peter, "for I don't see my way so clearly to my money now." "Why not?" asked Brian earnestly. "Your father was not a man to pay anybody when I knew him," said Peter.

"When I was a lad he left Penton. I only have a misty recollection of him at that time," said Brian mournfully; "a faint impression of a little kindness and a great deal of neglect stands for 'father' in those days. What kind of man was he, Peter?"

"Well, he was a better temper than the rest of you," said Peter frankly; "he took things easily, and let things go by him in an easy fashion, too."

"Careless ?"

"Yes."