“Ah! but I do. See what a lot o’ good last lot did me. I’m a deal stronger than I used to were. You’ll let me have another bottle, doctor?”
“Well, well, I’ll see. Terrible job this, Moredock.”
“Ay, it be trubble job, doctor. I’m going to open the morslem. Say, doctor, ’member what I said ’bout my Dally. Be strange thing if she got to be missus up at Hall now. Why, he be dreaming like again,” he added to himself.
“Remember what?” said the doctor. “Your Dally—the Rectory maid?”
“Ay, doctor; seems as if them as is maids may be missuses. Who knows, eh?”
“Who knows, you old wretch!” cried the doctor angrily. “You look sharply after your grandchild, for fear trouble should come.”
“All right, doctor, I will. I’ll look out, and I’m not going to quarrel with you. I arn’t forgot what you did when I cut my hand with the spade.”
“And suffered from blood poisoning, eh? Ah! I saved your life then, Moredock.”
“And you will again, won’t you, doctor?” said the old man smoothly; “for I’ve a deal to do yet. Don’t be jealous, doctor. If my gal gets to be my lady you shall ’tend her. You’re a clever one, doctor; but there, I must go on, for I’ve a deal to do.”
The old man gave the doctor a ghoul-like smile, and went off to busy himself, doing nothing apparently, though he was busier than might have been supposed; while, as if unable to tear himself away, Horace North stood holding on to the railing of the tomb in the chancel—the tomb where the founder of the family lay—the next in descent of the line of baronets having preferred to build the noble mausoleum on the opposite side, where it looked like a handsome chapel of the fine old ecclesiastical structure; and it would be there that the last dead baronet would in a few days lie.