At that moment Salis came out of the vestry, with his sister, and was about to go up to North and speak; but he drew back as Cousin Thompson came round the end of the chancel. "Why, here you are!" exclaimed the latter. "The carriage is waiting, and all the rest are gone." "Gone?" said the doctor dreamily. "Gone where?" "Where? Why, up to the Hall, of course. We must hear the will." "No," said North coldly; "the will does not concern me. I am not coming." "Not coming?" cried Cousin Thompson. "Why, the man must be mad." He hurried along the path, to spring into the carriage waiting at the gate, while after a glance round at the knots of people waiting about the churchyard, North walked slowly up to old Moredock. The old man saw him coming, and half turned away as if to speak to his grandchild, but North checked him. "Moredock," he said quietly, "you'll want that medicine to-night." "No, no, doctor," said the old man uneasily, "no more--no more." "Yes, you will want some more," said the doctor meaningly; and the old man returned his fixed look, and then stood rubbing his withered yellow cheek with the key of the vault as the doctor walked away. "I don't like it," he muttered. "I don't like it. Not in my way. Ah, Dally, my lass, going home?" "I'm going back to the Rectory, if that's what you mean," said the girl shortly, as she turned away. "Ah, there she goes," muttered the old man, "and why not? She's handsome enough. But the doctor--the doctor, coming down to-night. Well, I must do it; I must do it, I suppose, for I can't get on without him, and it's too soon to die just yet. Bit o' money, too--a bit o' money. Man must save up, so as not to go in the workhouse. Dally, too. Fine clothes and feathers, and make a lady of her. Why not, eh? How do I know he wouldn't poison me next time if I didn't mind what he said?" Volume 2, Chapter III. FOR A SPECIAL REASON. Jonadab Moredock sat smoking his pipe on the night of the funeral, after Luke Candlish had been laid to his rest. The old man sat in the dark for economical reasons, and whenever he drew hard at his pipe, the glow in the bowl faintly lit up his weird old face. He was communing with himself, for apparently his conscience was pricking him with reminders of the past. "Well," he muttered, "it was only lead, and bits o' zinc did just as well. Sold one of the bells if I could? Well, so I would, if they hadn't been so heavy. Much mine as anybody else's. I'm 'bout the oldest man in Hampton!" He smoked on furiously, and shifted about in his chair. "What was a man to do? Go to workhouse when he got old? No, I wouldn't do that. Only a few bones as the doctors wanted, and as would ha' rotted in the ground if they'd been left. Do good, too. Them as they b'longed to's glad they're able to do good with them, I know.