"Is it my poor Ewan's coat?" he asked, as he held out his hand to take it; but his tone was one of almost hopeless misery and not of inquiry.
"That's true, my lord," said Jabez, and thereupon the little tailor started an elaborate series of identifications, based chiefly on points of superior cut and workmanship. But the Bishop cut the tailor short with a wave of the hand.
"You found it on Orrisdale Head?" asked the Bishop.
And one of the men behind pushed his head between the shoulders of those who were before him, and said:
"Aw, yes, my lord, not twenty yards from the cliff, and I found something else beside of it."
Just then there was a further noise in the passage outside the library, and a voice saying:
"Gerr out of the way, you old loblolly-boys, bringing bad newses still, and glad of them, too."
It was Hommy-beg returned to Bishop's Court with yet another message, but it was a message of his own and not of the Deemster's. He pushed his way through the throng until he came face to face with the Bishop, and then he said:
"The Dempster is afther having the doctor down from Ramsey, and the big man is sayin' the neck was broken, and it was a fall that killed the young pazon, and nothing worse, at all at all."
The large sad eyes of the Bishop seemed to shine without moving as Hommy spoke, but in an instant the man who had spoken before thrust his word in again, and then the Bishop's face grew darker than ever with settled gloom.