“Perhaps we never shall hear,” she sighed. “Even if he reached the coast in safety, he may not have got over to the other side. A great many wrecks took place about that time: our weekly paper was full of them. It was the time of the equinoctial gales, and——”
“Come along, Johnny!” called out Tod, at this juncture. “We must get on. Good-night, Edna: good-night, you youngsters.”
The next day, Saturday, we went to Worcester, the Squire driving us, and there saw Gisby as large as life. The man had naturally great assumption of manner, and latterly he had taken to dress in the fashion. He was looming up High Street, booted and spurred, his silver-headed whip in his hand. Taking off his hat with an air, he wished the Squire a loud good-morning, as if the town belonged to him, and we were only subjects in it.
“I should think Westerbrook has never been fool enough to make his will in Gisby’s favour!” remarked the Squire, staring after him. “Egad, though, it looks like it!”
“It is to be hoped, sir, that he would make it in Fred’s,” was Tod’s rejoinder. And the suggestion put the pater out.
“Make it in Fred’s,” he retorted, going into one of his heats, and turning sharply round on the crowded pavement near the market-house, by which he came into contact with two women and their big butter-baskets. “What do you mean by that, sir? Fred Westerbrook is beyond the pale of wills, and all else. It’s not respectable to mention his name. He—bless the women! What on earth are these baskets at?”
They seemed to be playing at bumps with the Squire; baskets thick and threefold. Tod went in to the rescue, and got him out.
It was a strange thing. It really was. Considering that for the past day or two something or other had arisen to bring up thoughts of Fred Westerbrook, it was strange that the strangest of all things in connection with him was yet to come.
Sitting round the fire after supper, upon getting home from Worcester—it is a long drive, you know—and Tod had gone up to bed, dead tired, who should walk in but Duffham. He would not sit down, had no time; but told his business hastily. Dick Standish was dying, and had something on his conscience.
“I would have heard his confession,” said Duffham, “as I have heard that of many another dying man; but he seems to wish to make it to a magistrate. Either to a magistrate, or to old Mr. Westerbrook, he urged. But there’s no time to go up to the N. D. Farm, so I came for you, Squire.”