"Who can say! There's never been a case like it before, you see."
"Well, the paper doesn't say, but I expect they've got them safe enough in London—Mr. Schuabe and the other fellow."
"Just to think of our Mr. Gortre helping to find it out! Pity we ever let him go away from the parish church."
"They can't do less than make him a bishop, I should think."
"Miss Byars, you ought to be proud of your young man. There's many folk blessing him in England this night."
And so on, and so forth; simple, homely speeches, not indeed free from a somewhat hard commercial view, but informed with kindliness and gratitude.
At last, one by one, they went away. It was close upon midnight when the last visitor had departed.
The vicar read a psalm to his daughter:
"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people."
Basil was to come to them on the morrow for a long stay.