“You never told us that.”
“Because I never believed it. A Radcliffe never had a weak heart yet. And it’s only a thought o’ mine: he might have died from something else. Laid hands on himself, maybe.”
“For goodness’ sake don’t bring up such an ill thought as that,” cried the pater explosively. “Wait till you know.”
“Yes, I must wait till I know,” said Stephen, sullenly. “And a precious inconvenience it is to me to go up at this moment when my hay’s just cut! Frank’s been a bother to me all his life, and he must even be a bother now he’s dead.”
“Shall I go up for you?” asked the Squire: who in his distress at the sudden news would have thought nothing of offering to start for Kamschatka.
“No good if you did,” growled Stephen, folding up the letter that the pater handed back to him. “They’d not as much as release him to be buried without me, I expect. I shall bring him down here,” added Stephen, jerking his head in the direction of the churchyard.
“Yes, yes, poor fellow—let him lie by his mother,” said the Squire.
Stephen said a good-morrow, meant for the whole of us; and had rounded the duck-pond on his exit, when he stopped, and turned back again to the pater.
“There’ll be extra expenses, I suppose, up at Dale’s. Have I your authority to discharge them?”