So far so well for the cunning creature’s schemes; but all this was only preliminary to his drawing of a much wider net about the waters in which he fished. In the meantime, planning to secure a greater privacy for his operations, he had taken the second step contemplated by him, and dismissed at a moment’s notice the whole household--with a single exception. It was on the day of the funeral that he had done this, after the mortal remains of the ex-Judge had been taken to Ashburton, and put to rest for all time in a corner of the little old graveyard of St Lawrence’s Chapel. The chaplain himself had come over to preface the obsequies with a little traditional ceremony which, under the circumstances, the good man thought advisable. He made no reflections, he said, but, in view of rumours which could not be altogether ignored, he judged it well, for the reconciling of his office with his conscience, and for the hopefuller salvation of an erring soul, to take the precaution. Wherefore, after seeing the coffin lifted out, and placed upon the cart which was to carry it, he stood before the house-door, and demanded in a loud voice to know if any there was so charitable and so Christian as to take it upon himself to _eat the sins of the deceased_, pawning his own soul, as it were, for the ease and rest of the departed one. Whereat, after a pregnant pause, had come forward honest Nol the porter, and flamingly averred that he was prepared to undertake that pious task, saving the presumption of putting his own soul and that of his dear master’s at a common valuation; and down he had sat upon the stool, or cricket, placed for him, and taking from the clergyman’s hands the groat proffered him, and from Gammer Harlock’s the crust of bread and the mazard-bowl of ale which were the symbols of the sacrifice, had then and there stoically consumed the food, and, washing it securely home in one great draught which emptied the bowl, had risen from the ceremony a refreshed but somewhat haunted man. He went with the body afterwards, with Phineas and William accompanying--Melton, for sufficient reasons, remaining behind; and, after the burying, the three, very sad and downcast, returned to the Grange, and were immediately summoned, together with Mrs Harlock, to the presence of him who was now their master. They obeyed, with a feeling of vague foreboding. John Melton sat in the room which had been erst his host’s and benefactor’s. He looked at the four as they entered with a dry wintry smile. Beside his chair stood the attorney, a figure no less frosty in suggestion. There was not enough red blood between the two of them to have stained a counter, only the lips of both, and the crafty, slit eyelids of the attorney, showing a pale smear of red.