CHAPTER VIII
THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE WISDOM OF GILBERT
One afternoon, about the middle of November, Gilbert, looking in at the ‘barracks,’ said to Michael—
‘I wish you’d give a little particular attention to my father. It strikes me that he is not so well as he ought to be, or rather, that he’s worse than usual. I wonder if Rowntree would mind looking in, as well?’
‘Of course, we will come. Now, do you mean? I’ll go at once, and the doctor at night.’
He went across to his father’s house and saw him. Mr. Langstroth was certainly very weak and unwell, but not, it seemed to Michael, seriously so. He left directions for him to be kept very quiet, and returned to his dwelling, promising that he and Dr. Rowntree would both look in during the evening.
As they sat at dinner, a messenger came hurriedly from the Red Gables, summoning them to go at once to Mr. Langstroth, who was very ill. In a very few moments they were in the house, but only to find that all was over, and that Gilbert, white and haggard-looking, was standing by the chair in which their father lay, lifeless. Gilbert said they had risen from table, and he had supported his father to his chair, into which he had sunk, dead. The young man’s pallor and tremulousness were fully accounted for to Michael, by the fact of the sudden blank which must now come in his life, after his years of devoted attention to his father, who had thus so suddenly departed; and by every silent sign that he knew how to give, he sought to assure Gilbert of the sympathy and fellow-feeling he experienced.
There was a hush and solemnity in both the houses during the few days which elapsed between Mr. Langstroth’s death and his burial.
There was but a small following to attend him to his grave. Roger Camm and Dr. Rowntree formed a part of it, and there was Miss Strangforth’s carriage, and several others sent by neighbours and friends, Otho Askam’s brougham amongst them.
When it was over, the two brothers, with Dr. Rowntree and Mr. Coningsby, returned to the Red Gables. It was decided that it would be best to, as the doctor said, ‘get through with the business of the will,’ then and there, so that their minds might be free for other things.
It was one o’clock in the afternoon of a dank, chill November day, when they parted; and Roger Camm, with an inclination of the head to Michael, to show that he was with him in spirit, if not in the flesh, went to the doctor’s house, intending there to wait lunch for him.