Harley thrust the scraps of old newspaper into the flame of the candle, and as the blaze crawled up and threw red wavers of light around the room, Banks and Nash jumped as if they were on springs, and old Timothy Fletcher let out a yell.
"I thought the old varment was a-fire already an' lookin' over my shoulder," explained Timothy, a minute later. He lit several more candles and led the way downstairs and into the dining-room. He got out a decanter of whisky, glasses and water. All four helped themselves to stiff doses. Nash took a sip, then raised his glass.
"The old bounder started all manner of mischief in this place, between friends and neighbors," he said, "but now he's dead we'll have a little peace. Here's to peace! I wish Reginald Rayton was here to shake hands with me."
"A very proper wish," said Mr. Banks. "The old rascal made fools of every mother's son of us."
"He was a wonder," said Timothy Fletcher. "This place will be dull as ditch water now. He was a great pot cracked, a great bottle busted. I hope he stays dead, that's all. What yarns he used to tell me, when I was his nurse at Fairville—afore he begun to pretend he was cured. I used to think they was all lies; but now I guess they was true—the most of them, anyhow. Of course I never stood for the Sultan of Turkey story. An' he'd talk about the sea, an' foreign ports all smelly with sugar an' rum an' spice, until I was pretty near ripe to run away an' sign on with some skipper. An' the adventures! To hear him, gentlemen, you'd swear that in all his v'yages he'd never gone ashore without savin' the life of a beautiful woman nor glanced up at a window in the narrow street without havin' a rose or a letter chucked out to him. He was a wonder. Oh, yes, I admired his brains, even after I begun to hate him. He was a good master to me for awhile after we left the mad-house—until he commenced rollin' me up in blankets every now an' agin' an' jumping on top of me when I was sound asleep, yowlin' like a moon-struck dog. I should have spoke about all them things to one of you gentlemen, I know; but I figgered as how he might grow out of them tricks some day an' maybe remember me in his will. I'll miss him; but I ain't sorry to see the last of him, damn him! I got my wages all safe—an' he paid me well."
CHAPTER XXII
IN THE WAY OF HAPPINESS
Captain Wigmore was buried in Samson's Mill Settlement, in a little graveyard on a spruce-sheltered slope behind the English church. A very young parson drove thirty miles to bury him; and as a Baptist minister had driven twenty miles for the same purpose a joint service was held.
"The old joker is safe buried, anyhow; an' I'm glad to know it," was Timothy Fletcher's comment at the side of the grave.