Then he wondered if there would be any danger of meeting Alex if he went up to the house right after dinner. "I can't manage it this morning," he said to himself. "I've got to go and see Mrs. Drayton.

Well, I wish the Lord would see fit to cure her--or something."

So he went plodding out into a still, gray February day, and called on Mrs. Drayton, and stopped at the post-office to hear the news, and then went home to his dinner. "Ye're not going out _again_?" his Mary cried, in shrill remonstrance, when in the afternoon she saw him m.u.f.fle himself up for the drive out into the country; "it's beginning to snow!"

"I am," said Dr. Lavendar; "and see you have a good supper for me when I get back." He got into his buggy, b.u.t.toning the ap.r.o.n up in front of him, for it was a wet snow. He had on a shabby old fur cap, which he pulled well down over his forehead, furrowed by other people's sins and troubles; but his eyes peered from under it as bright and happy as a squirrel's.

His little blind horse pulled slowly and comfortably up the hill, stopping to get his breath on a shaky bridge over a run. In the silence of the snow Dr. Lavendar did not hear the stage coming down the hill until it was almost on the bridge; then he had to pull over to let it pa.s.s. As he did so the single pa.s.senger inside rapped on the window, and then opened it and thrust his head out, calling to the driver to stop.

"Dr. Lavendar! you have heard, I suppose? Very sad. A great shock.

Of course I'm going on at once to bring the body back. It is difficult to get off at this season, but a son has a sacred duty." Alex's pale eyes were bulging from his red, excited face.

"What news?" Dr. Lavendar said. "You don't mean--Alex! John isn't--your father isn't--"

"My father is dead," Alex said, with ponderous solemnity. "It is a great grief, of course; but I trust I shall be properly resigned. His age rendered such an event not altogether unexpected."

Dr. Lavendar could not speak; but as the stage-driver began to gather up his reins from the steaming backs of his horses, he said, brokenly: "Wait--wait. Tell me about it, Alex; your father and I have been friends all our lives." Alex told him briefly: He had just had a despatch; his father had died that morning; he had been less well for a fortnight. "I had a letter from him this morning," Alex said, "in which he referred to his health--"

"So had I--so had I."

"I cannot get back with the body for six days--three to go, three to come," Alex said, "but I will be obliged if you will arrange for the obsequies next Thursday."

"Yes, yes. I will make any arrangements for you," Dr. Lavendar said.

He took out his big red silk pocket-handkerchief and blew his nose with a trembling flourish. "We were boys together; your father was the big boy, you know; I was the youngster. But we were great friends. Alex, I am afraid my own grief has made me forgetful of yours; but you have had a loss, my boy--a great loss."

"Very much so--very much so," Alex agreed, with a proper sigh, and pulled up the window of the stage, then lowered it abruptly: "Oh, Dr.

Lavendar, are you going on as far up as--as _my_ house?"

"As _your_ house?" Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Oh--oh yes; I didn't understand. Yes, I am."

"Would it inconvenience you," Alex said, "to stop there? I am going to ask Mr. Ezra Barkley to come up at once and put seals on various things. I am the sole executor, as well as the heir, of course; but I sha'n't be able to attend to things for a week; and the forms of law must be observed. If you could be on hand when Barkley is there--not that I do not trust him."

Dr. Lavendar stared at him blankly; for an intelligent man, Alex was sometimes a great fool. But he only nodded gravely, and said he would stop at the house and wait for Mr. Ezra; Alex signed to the driver, and the stage went rolling noiselessly on into the storm. When, at the foot of the hill, Alex glanced back through the little oblong of bubbly gla.s.s in the leather curtain of the coach, he saw Dr. Lavendar's buggy standing motionless where he had pa.s.sed it on the bridge; then the snow hid it.

Under the bridge the creek ran swiftly between edges of ice that here and there had caught a dipping branch and held it prisoner, or had spread in agate curves--snow white, clear black, faint white again--around a stone in mid-stream. On the black current, silent except for a murmurous rush of bubbles under the ice, the snowflakes melted instantly, myriads of them--hurrying, hurrying, hurrying; then, as they touched the water, gone. Dr. Lavendar, in the buggy, sat looking down at them:

"_In an instant--in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed._" ...

"He was my oldest friend." ("Was": with what an awful prompt.i.tude the mind adjusts itself to "he _was_"!) Yet as he sat there, peering out over the top of the ap.r.o.n and making, heavily, those plans familiar to every clergyman, Dr. Lavendar did not really believe that the plans were for Johnny. The snow fell with noiseless steadiness; the top of the buggy was white; thimbles of down heaped themselves on the hubs, tumbling off when the horse moved restlessly a step forward or backed a little and stamped. Suddenly Goliath shook himself, for the snow was cold upon his s.h.a.ggy back, and the harness clattered and the shafts rattled. Dr. Lavendar drew a long breath. "G'on!" he said. And Goliath went on with evident relief. He knew the road well, and turned in at the Gordon gateway, as a matter of course. When he stopped at the front steps, the door opened and Rachel stood there, her eyes red.

"Sam will take him round to the stable, sir," she said, as Sam shambled out from the back of the house to stand at Goliath's head. "Oh, my!

sir; I suppose you've heard?"

"Yes, Rachel; I've heard," the old man said, unb.u.t.toning the ap.r.o.n and climbing out. Rachel took his hand and wept audibly. "I knew he'd never come back; he was marked for death. I've lived here eighteen years, and I always said it was a privilege to work for a gentleman like him."

"Yes--yes," he said, kindly. He was plainly agitated, and Rachel saw that he was trembling.

"Course you feel it, sir, being about of an age," she said, sympathetically. "Dr. Lavendar, sir, won't you have a gla.s.s of something?" With the hospitality of an old servant, she would have opened the little closet in the chimney-breast, but he checked her.

"Not yet; not now, Rachel. Leave me here awhile by myself, my girl.

I'll come out to the kitchen and see you before I go. When Mr. Barkley comes, ask him to step into the library."

"Yes, sir," Rachel said, obediently; and went away sniffling and sighing.

Dr. Lavendar stood looking about him at the emptiness of the room: the winged chair, with the purple silk handkerchief hanging over the back; the table heaped with books; the fire drowsing in the grate; the old safe in the corner by the window. Outside, the snow drove past, blotting the landscape. Ezra would probably arrive within a half-hour; he had better get the note before he came. Then there need be no explanations.

When Mr. Ezra came in he found the old minister sitting by the fire, quite calm again, and even cheerful. "Yes," he said, in answer to the lawyer's very genteel expressions of sympathy--"yes, I'll miss him. We were boys together. He used to call me Bantam. I hadn't thought of it for years."

"Nicknames," said Mr. Ezra, "were used by the ancients as long ago as 300 B.C."

"Well, I'm not as ancient as 300 B.C.," said Dr. Lavendar, "but I called him Storkey; I can't imagine why, for he was only an inch and a half taller; he always said it was two inches, but it wasn't. It was an inch and a half."

"We are here," said Mr. Ezra, pulling off his gloves and coughing politely, "for indeed a solemn and an affecting task. It is my duty, sir, to seal the effects of the deceased, so that they may be delivered, intact, to the executor."

Dr. Lavendar nodded.

"In all my professional career I have never happened to be called upon for this especial duty. It is quite unusual. But Alex seemed to think it necessary. Alex is a good son."

"So he says," said Dr. Lavendar.

"Are you aware, sir," proceeded Mr. Ezra, producing from his bag the paraphernalia of his office, "that such is the incredible celerity of bees (belonging to the _Hymenoptera_) that they can within twenty-four hours manufacture four thousand cells in the comb? This interesting fact is suggested by the use of wax for sealing."

Dr. Lavendar watched him in a silence so deep that he hardly heard the harmless stream of statistics; but at last he was moved to say, with his kind, old smile, "How _can_ you know so many things, Ezra?"

"In my profession," Mr. Ezra explained, "it is necessary to keep the mind up to the greatest agility; I, therefore, exercise it frequently in matters of memory." He lit a candle and held his wax sputtering in the flame. "I recall," he said, "with painful interest, that at one of our recent meetings I had the honor of drawing the power of attorney for you, from the deceased."

"So you did," said Dr. Lavendar.

"Did you ever reflect," said Mr. Barkley, "that should that power be used after the death of the donor, to carry out a wish of said donor, expressed an hour, nay, a moment, before the instant of dissolution--such act would be an offence in the eye of the law?"

"I've always thought the law ought to put on spectacles, Ezra," said Dr. Lavendar; "it has mighty poor eyesight once in a while."

Mr. Barkley was shocked. "The law, Lavendar, is the deepest expression of the human sense of justice!"

"But, Ezra," Dr. Lavendar said, suddenly attentive, "that is very interesting. I remember you referred to the lapsing of the power of attorney when you made out that paper for me; but I didn't quite understand. Do you mean that carrying out, now, directions given before the death of my old friend would be against the law? Suppose he had asked me--last week, perhaps, to destroy--well, say that old account-book there on the table, couldn't I do it to-day?"

"Dr. Lavendar, you do not, I fear, apprehend the majesty of the law!

Why," said Mr. Ezra, standing up, very straight and solemn, "such a deed--"

"But suppose I didn't want--suppose Johnny didn't want, for reasons of his own, to have anybody--say, even his executor--see that account-book; suppose it might be put to some bad purpose--used to injure some third person (of course that is an absurd supposition, but it will do for an ill.u.s.tration); if he had asked me last week to destroy it, do you mean to say, Ezra, I couldn't destroy it to-day?--just because he happened to die this morning!"

"My dear sir," said Mr. Ezra, "such conduct on your part would be perilously near a criminal offence."

Dr. Lavendar whistled. "Well, Ezra, I won't destroy it."

"I hope not, sir--I hope not, indeed," cried Mr. Ezra.

Dr. Lavendar laughed; he had the impulse to turn round and wink at Johnny, to take him into the joke. But it was only for an instant, and his face fell quickly into puzzled lines.

"A moment's reflection," Mr. Ezra continued, "will convince you, Dr.