“Three o’clock.”
“Very well, then, I’ll be passin’ at the mill end o’ the glen about that time, and I’ll ride up, and look in, just to hear what you have to say, and I’ll get home by Cressley Common. It will do me as well as t’other way. I turned aside a bit to reach you, and hear the news, and I must be joggin’ again. Good-bye, doctor. Is your church clock right?” said Harry, looking up at the old tower and pulling out his watch to compare.
“‘The clock goes as it pleaseth the clerk,’ the old saw tells us, but we all go by the clock here, and it does keep right good time,” said old Dr. Willett, with his hand over his eyes, reading its golden hands and figures, as Harry was.
“Well, then, doctor, good-bye, and God bless ye,” said Harry, and away he rode, without hearing the doctor’s farewell.
At Carwell Grange, at three o’clock, there was the gloom and silence of a sick house.
The tiptoe tread of old Dulcibella, and her whisperings at the door, were scarcely audible, and now and then a weary moan was heard in the darkened room, and the wail and squall of a little child from another room not far off.
Old Mildred Tarnley had undertaken the charge of the child, while Dulcibella, with the aid of a neighbour brought in for the occasion, took charge of the sick lady.
Before three o’clock came, to the surprise of this sad household, Harry Fairfield arrived. He did not come riding; he arrived in a tax-cart. He had got through more real work that day than many men who were earning their bread by their labour.
“Give this one a feed, Tom; and how’s all here?” said he, throwing the apron off and jumping down.
“Bad enough, I’m afraid, sir.”