thout, and scowled round at each of them with a malignant
and ferocious aspect. "Very well, it's very well, neighbors!" said he
at length, with a fierce laugh; "this is kind! You have come to
welcome Richard Houseman home, have ye? Good, good! Not to gloat at his
distress? Lord, no! Ye have no idle curiosity, no prying, searching,
gossiping devil within ye that makes ye love to flock and gape and
chatter when poor men suffer! This is all pure compassion; and Houseman,
the good, gentle, peaceful, honest Houseman, you feel for him,--I know
you do! Hark ye, begone! Away, march, tramp, or--Ha, ha! there they go,
there they go!" laughing wildly again as the frightened neighbors shrank
from the spot, leaving only Walter and the clergyman with the childless
man.

"Be comforted, Houseman!" said Summers, soothingly; "it is a dreadful
affliction that you have sustained. I knew your daughter well: you may
have heard her speak of me. Let us in, and try what heavenly comfort
there is in prayer."

"Prayer! pooh! I am Richard Houseman!"

"Lives there one man for whom prayer is unavailing?"

"Out, canter, out! My pretty Jane! And she laid her head on my bosom,
and looked up in my face, and so--died!"

"Come," said the curate, placing his hand on Houseman's arm, "come."

Before he could proceed, Houseman, who was muttering to himself, shook
him off roughly, and hurried away up the street; but after he had gone
a few paces, he turned back, and approaching the curate, said, in a more
collected tone: "I pray you, sir, since you are a clergyman (I recollect
your face, and I recollect Jane said you had been good to her),--I pray
you go and say a few words over her. But stay,--don't bring in my name;
you understand. I don't wish God to recollect that there lives such a
man as he who now addresses you. Halloo! [shouting to the women] my hat,
and stick too. Fal la! la! fal la!--why should these things make us play
the madman? It is a fine day, sir; we shall have a late winter.

"Curse the b____, how long she is! Yet the hat was left below. But when
a death is in the house, sir, it throws things into confusion: don't you
find it so?"

Here one of the women, pale, trembling, and tearful, brought the ruffian
his hat; and placing it deliberately on his head, and bowing with a
dreadful and convulsive attempt to smile, he walked slowly away and
disappeared.

"What strange mummers grief makes!" said the curate. "It is an appalling
spectacle