They made their comments as they stood waiting for the funeral. The December day was raw and dull, the grey skies seeming to threaten a fall of some kind; but Mrs. Bent pronounced it not cold enough for snow. She stood at her front door, wearing a black gown, and black strings to her cap; and was condescendingly exchanging remarks with some of her inferior neighbours, and with Mrs. and Miss Pike, who had run over from the shop.
"We shall never have such a week o' surprises as this have been," pronounced Mrs. Pike, a little red-faced woman, who was this morning in what she called "the thick of a wash," and consequently had come out en déshabille, a shawl thrown over her cap, underneath which peeped out some black straggling curls. "First of all, about them smugglers and poor Mr. Harry's wound and death, and that good-hearted Commodore having to decamp himself off, through them ferreting coastguards. And now to hear that the gentleman staying here so long is one o' the Castlemaines theirselves, and heir to Greylands' Rest after Mr. Harry! It beats the news column in the Stilborough paper holla."
"'Twere a sad thing, though, about that young Mr. Anthony," exclaimed old Ben Little. "The smugglers shot him dead, ye see, and that scream Mr. Bent said he heard were his. Full o' life one moment, and shot down the next! Them wretches ought to have swung for it."
"It be a pack o' surprises, all on't, but the greatest on 'em be Jane Hallet," quoth Nancy Gleeson. "When it come out that Mr. Harry had married her, you might ha' sent me down head for'ard with a feather--just as Mr. Harry sent down our Tim one day, when he said a word again' her."
"It was very sly of Jane," struck in Miss Susan Pike, tossing her curls. "Never saying a word to a body, and making believe as it was just talk about her and Mr. Harry, and nothing else. I'd like to know how she wheedled him over."
"It's not for you to speak against her, Susan Pike," cried Mrs. Bent in her sharpest tone. "You didn't wheedle him, and wasn't likely to. She is Mr. Harry's wife--widow, worse luck!--and by all accounts no blame's due to her. Mr. Castlemaine gives none: and we heard yesterday he was going to settle two hundred a year on her for life."
"My! won't she set up for a lady!" enviously returned Miss Pike, ignoring the reprimand.
"Don't you be jealous, and show it, Susan Pike," retorted Mrs. Bent. "Everybody liked Jane: and we are all glad--but you--that she's cleared from the scandal. I did think it odd that she should go wrong."
"Her aunt have got her home now, and have took up all her proud airs again," said Mrs. Pike, not pleased that her daughter should be put down. "That Miss Hallet have always thought none of us was good enough for her."
"Hist!" said Ben Little, in a hushed voice. "Here it comes."