A short line of black dots was seen coming along it, in the direction of the house. As they neared it they were discovered to be men, each with a hoe or shovel upon his shoulder.
“The deed is done!” said the master, smiling. “My good fellows there have spared the county the expense, and the overseer the trouble of this little matter. As for the Potter's Field, a place in my servants' burying-ground is quite as respectable, and more convenient in this weather.”
The jurors were grouped about the fire in the baronial hall, buttoning up overcoats and splatterdashes, and drawing on their riding-gloves, all having come on horseback. In the midst of the general bepraisement of their host's gentlemanly and liberal conduct, Mrs. Aylett swam down the staircase, resplendent in silver-gray satin, pearl necklace and bracelets, orange flowers and camelias in her hair—semi-bridal attire, that became her as nothing else ever had done.
“My dear madam,” said the foreman of the inquest—a courtly disciple of the old school of manner, and phraseology—as the august body of freeholders parted to either side to leave her a passage-way to the fireplace—“your husband is a happy man, and his wife should be a happy woman in having won the affection of such a model of chivalry”—stating succinctly the late proof the “model” had offered to an admiring world of his chivalric principles.
The delicate hand stole to its resting-place upon her lord's arm, as the lady answered, her ingenuous eyes suffused with the emotion that gave but the more sweetness to her smile.
“I AM a happy woman, Mr. Nelson! I think there is not a prouder or more blessed wife in all the land than I am this evening.”
Laugh, jest, and dance ruled the fleeting hours in the halls of the old country-house that night, and the presiding genius of the revel was still the beautiful hostess—never more beautiful, never so winning before. No one noticed that, by her orders, or her husband's, the window through which she had beheld the goblin visage was closely curtained. Or, this may have been an accidental disposition of the drapery, since no trace of her momentary alarm remained in her countenance or demeanor.
In the kitchen a double allowance of toddy was served out, by their master's orders, to the men who had taken part in the interment on the hill-top. And, in their noisy talk over their potations the vagrant was scarcely mentioned.
Only the pines, hoarser in their sough, by reason of the falling snow that clogged their boughs, chanted a requiem above the rough hillock at their feet.
“Man cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name is covered with darkness!”