Here Philip, with deprecatory attitudes, withdrew.
For once the man stood firm, and having started on his rounds at dawn upon the burial day of Gregory Friend, he was able to pay final respect to the peat-master and be numbered with the mourners.
Their company was small, but among them stood one most unexpected. Hilary Woodrow had sent a wreath the night before, and its beauty occasioned comment and admiration among those who saw it; but that he should come to the funeral was a great surprise. Come he did, however, and attended the opening portion of the service; but he did not join the party in the churchyard.
Brendon waited to see the grave filled; then he returned to his wife. She went with her little boy to the house of Mrs. Weekes after the funeral; and there he presently found her.
Hephzibah insisted on Sarah Jane drinking a glass of brown sherry, while the child ate a sponge-cake.
"Pale sherry-wine be right at a funeral—not dark," said the market-woman; "but, at times like this, the right and wrong of such a small thing really don't count for much to a sad heart." Then she turned to Gregory, the child.
"You darling boy! Behaved so beautiful, he did, with his curls a-shining like gold over his poor little black coat! 'Tis one in ten thousand, as I said from the first. I could wish vicar had read the lesson himself, instead of letting schoolmaster do it. But Churchward's always turned on to the lessons nowadays. 'Tis like a bumble-bee reading, to my ear. And Farmer Woodrow there too! Fancy that!"
Sarah Jane nodded. She had suffered very bitter grief in this loss, but she showed little of it except to her husband. Only he knew the extent and depth of her sorrow. He had asked her not to come to the funeral, but she chose to do so. Pale and dry-eyed, Sarah Jane endured. Of her sorrow very little appeared. She lacked her husband's faith, and strove with poor success to pass the barrier, or see herself in her father's arms when life's day was done.
She drank the wine and brushed the crumbs from her baby's frock and face.
"He wrote Daniel a very beautiful letter—Mr. Woodrow, I mean. He don't think about death like my husband do; but the letter made even Dan think. 'Twas deep, lovely language," she said.