CHAPTER XXI
FUNERAL
Enoch Withycombe had always promised to sound his horn again in sight of his end, and three days after he woke the echoes of the Vale he died. On the night that his music vibrated over hill and valley for the last time, Melinda had pushed his chair to the cottage door. When Lawrence called on the following Sunday afternoon, though he sat for a while beside his bed, the old hunter had already drifted into a comatose state, and the story Maynard had hoped to tell was never heard by him.
A bitter grey day dawned for a funeral attended by unusual mourners. The dead sportsman's master had made a promise and he kept it. Hounds did not meet that day; but the master, the huntsman and the whipper-in both clad in pink, and two brace of hounds were at the grave side—a bright flash of colour in the sombre little crowd that assembled.
Melinda Honeysett and her brother, Jerry, were chief mourners, while behind them came the fox-hunters; and of those who followed, some took it amiss to see such an addition to a funeral; while others held it most seemly and fitting.
Indeed for many days afterwards the question was heavily debated, and Arthur Chaffe and Ben Bamsey, who were both at the grave side, considered squire and parson alike to blame for an impropriety; while Joe Stockman, who came with Susan, Maynard and Thomas Palk, highly approved of the innovation. John Bamsey and Lawrence were among the bearers. They had also helped to carry the dead man from his home to the grave, for it was a walking funeral. Half a dozen private carriages followed it, and Melinda was bewildered to arrange the many gifts of flowers that came to her from her father's old friends of the countryside.
"Fox-hunters have long memories seemingly," said Jerry to his sister, as they read the cards attached to wreath and cross.
After the funeral was ended and when Enoch lay beside his wife, on the north of the church tower beneath a naked sycamore, it happened that Maynard found Dinah Waycott beside him in the press of the people. She had come with the Bamseys and, knowing that he would be there, now reached his side, bade him "good day," and unseen put a letter into his hand.
For a moment he picked up the thread of their conversation, where they had left it on the night by Dart River a week before.
"I couldn't tell him—he was too far gone next day," he said quietly, taking her letter.
"No matter," she answered, and then moved away.