She must have been thinking on the subject in detail; for she was not one to whom ideas came quickly.
All was speedily agreed, except the time of payment. The mail-clad itched for it, and sought it in advance. Manon demurred to that.
What, did she doubt their word? then let her come along with them, or watch them at a distance.
"Me?" said Manon, with horror. "I would liever die than see it done."
"Which yet you would have done."
"Ay, for sore is my need. Times are changed." She had already forgotten her precept to Denys.
An hour later the disagreeable relic of caterpillar existence ceased to canker the worshipful matron's public life, and the grim eyes of the past to cast malignant glances down into a white hind's clover field.
Total. She made the landlord an average wife, and a prime house-dog, and outlived everybody.
Her troops, when they returned from executing with mediæval naïveté the precept "Off wi' the auld love," received a shock. They found the market-place black with groups; it had been empty an hour ago. Conscience smote them. This came of meddling with the dead. However, the bolder of the two, encouraged by the darkness, stole forward alone, and slily mingled with a group: he soon returned to his companion, saying, in a tone of reproach not strictly reasonable,
"Ye born fool, it is only a miracle."