"Yes, oh yes, I will; I will indeed! What else, father?" But there was nothing else. Just two or three faint words as death came in, and a final gasp to close them. "God be with you ever, Tom!" That was all. And the only other thing I recollect was seeing the sister, Mrs. Cramp, come up in a yellow chaise from the Bell at Islip, and pass into the house, as we sat on the gate. But she was just too late. You may be sure that the affair caused a commotion. So grave a calamity had never happened at North Crabb. Mr. Chandler and his brother had started from Islip in their gig to look at some land that was going to be valued, which lay a mile or two on the other side Crabb on the Worcester Road. They had driven the horse a twelvemonth and never had any trouble with him. It was supposed that something must have been wrong with the harness. Any way, he had started, kicked, backed, and finally run away. I saw the funeral: standing with Tod in the churchyard amidst many other spectators, and reading the inscriptions on the grave-stones while we waited. Mr. Chandler had been taken back to his house at Islip, and was brought from thence to Crabb to be buried. Tom and George Chandler came in the first mourning-coach with their Uncle Jacob and his son Valentine. In the next sat two other relatives, with the Squire and Mr. Cole. Changes followed. Mrs. Chandler left the house at Islip, and Jacob Chandler and his family moved into it. She took a pretty cottage at North Crabb, and Tom walked to the office of a morning and home again at night. Valentine, Jacob's only son, was removed from school at once to be articled to his father. He was fifteen, just a year younger than Tom. Years passed on. Tom grew to be four-and-twenty, Valentine three-and-twenty. Both of them were good-looking young men, tall and straight; but Tom had the pleasanter face, address, and manners. Every one liked him. Crabb had thought when Tom attained his majority, and got his certificate as a solicitor, that his uncle would have taken him into partnership. The Squire had said it publicly. Instead of that, old Jacob gave him a hundred a-year salary to start with, and said to him, "Now we shall go on comfortably, Tom." Tom, who was anything but exacting, supposed his uncle wished him to add a year or two to his age and some more experience, before taking him in. So he thanked old Jacob for the hundred a-year, and was contented.