The influx of mourners was incessant, for no sooner had one set been refreshed than another battled its way in at the door to be regaled as well, and the first set, which had departed by the back door, made the circuit of the house, and appeared again at the front, fresh for new consolation.
The saffron cake and the cold beef were in request, but not to the same extent as the spirits. As each ate and drank he heaved a sigh, and said, 'Ah, well! Us shan't see the likes of he again,' or, 'He died beautiful—'appy as a hangel,' or some similar commonplace. It was part of the etiquette to heave a sigh and utter a moan, and make a pious observation. At length the rapidly declining day put a term to the entertainment, and caused a diminution in the concourse of applicants for cake and liquor.
When the last had departed, Dench cast himself into the arm chair and said, 'Darned if I ain't pretty nigh done up. Now it is my turn to touch a drop.'
'There is none left,' said Mrs. Jose, who had quietly removed the bottle, 'and what is more, you must clear out of this. Jane and I are about to wash up, and then we must carry back to Bindon the dishes and glasses that I lent for the occasion.'
'Well,' said Dench, 'it can't be said but that we did it handsome, and I reckon they enjoyed themselves—prodigious. As to clearing out—I don't see it, but I'll help to clear away.'
He set to work accordingly to make himself useful. He was, in fact, impatient to be rid of the two women. He replaced the chairs against the walls, brought in wood and made up the fire. He mounted the stairs and drew up the blind in the bedroom above, and as he did so peered into everything. The chamber had been well searched before; he searched it again now.
He did not descend till the women were gone burdened with baskets that contained glass and crockery. When he came down he saw Jack standing at the window, looking forth into the dark night that had set in, with an expression of sadness and in an attitude of dejection.
Olver said cheerily, 'We'll have out another bottle and smoke. Care killed the cat. Make this your home. Draw a chair to the fire and close the shutters, there is a good fellow. I'm a bit fagged—I've worked hard to-day. But blow me if I would not go through it all again for your dear old father. Ah! he was my most familiar friend. We knew each other from boyhood, and he valued me for my poor gifts. Hanged if I know what he saw in me—but there was something that made him cling to me. He trusted me above any one in the world. I am one of your straight men, you know. When he was bad with the stroke, and you had gone for the doctor, he could not speak, but he made eyes for the slate, and I understood him, and brought it to him, and he wrote on it, "I fear Jack, that he's thoughtless, and may waste his inheritance. Be a father to him, old friend. Tell him to intrust his money to you and beware of a bank." There,' said the ferryman, taking down the slate, 'you see it here. Drat it—only "I fear Ja——," the rest was there, upon my soul, I can swear to it; but there have been a deal of people in the house to-day rubbing against it with their shoulders, and they have rubbed the most of it out.'
'What you tell me seems too much to get on to the slate,' said Jack, but without exhibiting a lively interest in the communication.
'Oh, not a bit. You see the commencement,' said Dench. 'What follows has been brushed away. Then your father turned the slate and finished on the other side. Ah! that is gone. I warrant you that Jane Marley has done this. She is deep and she does not like us. A bad lot that. Do not trust her. If she had been able to write, there is no saying what she might have added and passed off as his last will. There has been no will found, I believe.'