The service over, they nearly all met at the door, as is the fashion with country congregations. Jerome, having ascertained that the family dinner did not come off for the space of an hour and a half, or more, said he was going for a walk, and wandered off in the direction of the wooded hill, the Nab, there to read his letter, and make good resolutions with regard to Nita, with an undercurrent of wonder, all the time, as to what Father Somerville would tell him he ought to do, if he knew all the circumstances of the case. Nita and John Leyburn, not noticing where Jerome went, presently strolled off in the same direction. Mr. Bolton remained with his cousin, Miss Shuttleworth, patiently waiting till she had finished her discourse with an odd-looking character, no less a personage than the sexton of Wellfield church. ‘I’m sorry to hear, Robert, that you got too much on Monday.’ ‘I fear I did, Miss Shuttleworth,’ he said, looking rather sheepish. ‘It is deplorable,’ said Miss Margaret, shaking her head. ‘How was it? for your wife could give me no proper account of it, and unless you can clearly prove that you were led away, I shall be obliged to show my displeasure this time. I shall have to withdraw my allowance to Mary.’ Mary was his sick daughter. ‘It were aw along o’ th’ brass band contest, Miss Margit; ’twere, for sure.’ ‘The brass band contest, Robert? I don’t see how the brass band contest could make you get tipsy and tumble into the grave you were digging, as I heard you did. Is it true?’ ‘Ay, every word on ’t’s true, Miss Margit—more’s th’ pity.’ ‘Shame on you! But how did it happen?’ He twirled his hat round by the brim, and a lurking smile and twinkle of the eye betrayed his inner consciousness that the affair had a ludicrous as well as a ‘deplorable’ side.