AT THE COTTAGE ON THE COMMON

Rain went with Lord Romfrey in a pursuing cloud all the way to Bevisham,
and across the common to the long garden and plain little green-
shuttered, neat white cottage of Dr. Shrapnel. Carriages were driving
from the door; idle men with hands deep in their pockets hung near it,
some women pointing their shoulders under wet shawls, and boys. The earl
was on foot. With no sign of discomposure, he stood at the half-open
door and sent in his card, bearing the request for permission to visit
his nephew. The reply failing to come to him immediately, he began
striding to and fro. That garden gate where he had flourished the
righteous whip was wide. Foot-farers over the sodden common were
attracted to the gateway, and lingered in it, looking at the long,
green-extended windows, apparently listening, before they broke away to
exchange undertone speech here and there. Boys had pushed up through the
garden to the kitchen area. From time to time a woman in a dripping
bonnet whimpered aloud.

An air of a country churchyard on a Sunday morning when the curate has
commenced the service prevailed. The boys were subdued by the moisture,
as they are when they sit in the church aisle or organ-loft, before their
members have been much cramped.

The whole scene, and especially the behaviour of the boys, betokened to
Lord Romfrey that an event had come to pass.

In the chronicle of a sickness the event is death.

He bethought him of various means of stopping the telegraph and
smothering the tale, if matters should have touched the worst here.