“By the way,” said he at the door, “it will hardly be necessary, I take it, to go through the farce of bringing a trifling matter of this kind before the other executors; Mrs Ingleton should really be spared all worry of this sort; and as for the other one—well, he chooses to be somewhere else.”
“Quite so, quite so. If you and Mrs Ingleton sign the lease it will be sufficient,” said Mr Pottinger.
Unluckily for the pleasantly arranged plan of these two good gentlemen, Miss Rosalind Oliphant took it into her pretty head a day or so afterwards to call at old Hodder’s cottage in passing, to ask for a glass of milk. The young lady was in a very discontented frame of mind. She was angry with Mr Armstrong for staying away so long. Not that she cared what he did, but till he came back she felt she did not know the full extent of the forces arrayed against her at Maxfield; and she wanted to know the worst. Besides, although Roger was diligently prosecuting his art studies and displaying the most docile obedience to her discipline, she could not help thinking he would not have taken to art except to please her; and that displeased her mightily. Besides, Tom, her brother, was too silly for anything; he insisted on enjoying himself, whoever else was miserable; and Jill was very little better. Altogether, Miss Oliphant was out of humour, and felt this walk would do her good.
She found the Hodder family in mighty tribulation. The old man sat in his corner with his hat on the floor beside him, crying and boohing like a child. And his two little granddaughters looked on at his grief, pale and half-frightened, knowing something bad had happened, but unable to guess what.
“Why, Hodder,” said Miss Rosalind, “whatever’s the matter? What a noise you’re making! What has happened?”
“Happened!” cried the old man with a voice quavering into a shrill treble. “How would he like it himself? Seventy years, boy and man, have I sat here, like my father before me. I’ve seen yon elm grow from a stick to what she is now. I’ve buried all my kith and kin bar them two lassies.”
“Of course, I know you’re very old. But why are you crying?” demanded Rosalind.
“Crying! Wouldn’t you cry, Missy, if you was to be turned neck and crop into the road at threescore years and ten?”
“Nonsense. What do you mean?”
“Come Tuesday,” sobbed the old man, “me and the lassies will be trespassers in this here very place.”