"Ay, mistress. Pitched on his head against the south gate-post. I
saw how it was with him when we took him up, and he never so much as
lifted an eyelid, but died at the turn of the night. Heaven rest his
soul!'

"Heaven rest his soul!" echoed Susan, and the ladies around chimed
in. They had come for one excitement, and here was another.

"There! See but what I said!" quoth Mrs. Rotherford, uplifting a
skinny finger to emphasise that the poor little flotsome had already
brought evil.

"Nay," said the portly wife of a merchant, "begging your pardon, this
may be a fat instead of a lean sorrow. Leaves the poor gentleman
heirs, Mrs. Talbot?"

"Oh no!" said Susan, with tears in her eyes. "His wife died two
years back, and her chrisom babe with her. He loved her too well to
turn his mind to wed again, and now he is with her for aye." And she
covered her face and sobbed, regardless of the congratulations of the
merchant's wife, and exclaiming, "Oh! the poor old lady!"

"In sooth, mistress," said Nathanael, who had stood all this time as
if he had by no means emptied his budget of ill news, "poor old madam
fell down all of a heap on the floor, and when the wenches lifted
her, they found she was stricken with the dead palsy, and she has not
spoken, and there's no one knows what to do, for the poor old squire
is like one distraught, sitting by her bed like an image on a
monument, with the tears flowing down his old cheeks. 'But,' says he
to me, 'get you to Hull, Nat, and take madam's palfrey and a couple