After a few weeks Thomas Leveridge was able to get about; and though he could not go at once to a distance for work, he was able to do small jobs near home. The squire came to Woodman’s Well. Complaints had been made by the sanitary officer that the cottages were ruinous and unhealthy.
“I’ll tell you what,” said he to Leveridge, “I will have them put into thorough repair and send the bill to old Rumage, who’s got the life-rights. If he won’t pay, then the cottages are mine.”
“And may I do them up?”
“Most assuredly.”
“That is famous,” said the mason; “then I shall have time to whitewash and make sweet before the wedding.”
“Wedding? What wedding? I thought there had been a burial—that the place was insanitary, and that——”
“Well, sir, out of Death cometh Life. A funeral sometimes leads to a marriage.”
A year and a day had passed since this conversation; then there issued from two houses at Woodman’s Well two little parties on their way to the parish church.