moorlands patched with dark fir plantations, which
range inland from behind Stourmouth. This constituted the goal of her
journey; for, the high-lying plateau reached, leagues of open country are
disclosed north and west, far as the eye carries, to the fine bare
outline of the Wiltshire Downs. She asked for wide prospects, for air and
ample space; but as floored by stable earth rather than by the eternal
unrest and "fruitless, sonorous furrows" of the sea.

Ever since the day of the funeral, now nearly a fortnight ago, Damaris
had kept within the sheltering privacy of the house and grounds. That
day, one of soft drizzling rain and clinging ground fog, had also been to
her one of hardly endurable distraction. Beneath assumption of respectful
silence, it jarred, boomed, took notes, debated, questioned. Beneath
assumption of solemnity, it peeped and stared. Her flayed nerves and
desolated heart plagued her with suspicions of insincerity.

In as far as Colonel Carteret controlled proceedings all had been marked
by reverent simplicity. But where the carcass is, the eagles,
proverbially, gather. And unfeathered fowl, in their own estimation
eminently representative of that regal species, flocked to Deadham church
and to The Hard.

If--to vary our metaphor--some, in the past, inclined to stone the living
prophet, these now outvied one another in their alacrity to bedeck his
tomb. Dr. Cripps, for example, hurried to offer himself as pall-bearer--a
request the more readily disposed of that there was no pall. While
Archdeacon Verity, to cite a second example and from a higher social
level, supported by his elder son Pontifex--domestic chaplain to the
Bishop of Harchester--insisted on sharing with Canon Horniblow the
melancholy honour of reading the burial service.

For the rest, the head, and lesser members of the family, from the big
house at Canton Magna, were solidly, not to say rather aggressively in
evidence. With them Mrs. Cowden and her husband-satellite, the Honourable
Augustus joined forces on arriving from Paulton Lacy.--Lord Bulparc drove
over from Napworth Castle. The country, indeed, showed up with
commendable indifference to depressing atmospheric conditions. Marychurch
sent a contingent. Stourmouth followed suit in the shape of General
Frayling--attended by Marshall Wace in full clerical raiment--bearing a
wreath of palm, violets, and myrtle wholly disproportionate in bulk and
circumference to his own shrivelled