CHAPTER XVI.
THRENODY
"In all my life, and long it has been, I never met a particular good man, nor yet a particular bad one. Maybe each sort's rare as t'other, for black and white mixed is the common dirt-colour of human nature. Yet—him—him we've laid to his rest—I do think he was good. He was better than sight to me—that I know."
The men in Bear Down kitchen were clad in black, for that noon they had buried their master, not without tears. He lay in Little Silver churchyard beside his wife's father; but Honor had not attended the funeral.
"Ess, a very gude, upright man, I think. A man as stood to work in season, and never bid none do a job what he couldn't have done better hisself," said Churdles Ash mournfully.
"A man of far-seeing purposes, as allus carried through whatever he ordained; an' could tell when rain was comin' to a day," added Samuel Pinsent. He knew of no higher praise than that.
"An' so soft-hearted wi' the beasts what perish that he comed by his death for a silly auld sheep. Who but him would have thrawed away life on such a fool's errand?" asked Cramphorn bitterly.
"No other man for sartain, sir," answered the boy Bates.
"Very fine to bring it in death by misadventure," continued Jonah, "an' I'm not saying 'twas anything but seemly so to do; but all the same, if the maister had lived an' come off wi' a mere brawken leg or arm, I'd have been the fust to tell un as he was riskin' his life in a fule's trick, even if he'd been a lighter built an' spryer man."
"A plaace as looks much easier than 'tis," said Tommy Bates. "I climbed it next day an' done it easy gwaine down, but 'twas all I could do, hangin' on by my claws like a cat, to get up 'pon top again."