Seeing me come he hobbled on his stick to the gate to open it for me,
whining a prayer for alms.
'Does Mr. Wingfield live here?' I said, pointing up the path, and my
breath came quick as I asked.
'Mr. Wingfield, sir, Mr. Wingfield, which of them?' he answered. 'The
old gentleman he's been dead nigh upon twenty years. I helped to dig
his grave in the chancel of yonder church I did, we laid him by his
wife--her that was murdered. Then there's Mr. Geoffrey.'
'What of him?' I asked.
'He's dead, too, twelve year gone or more; he drank hisself to dead
he did. And Mr. Thomas, he's dead, drowned over seas they say, many
a winter back; they're all dead, all dead! Ah! he was a rare one, Mr.
Thomas was; I mind me well how when I let the furriner go--' and he
rambled off into the tale of how he had set de Garcia on his horse after
I had beaten him, nor could I bring him back from it.
Casting him a piece of money, I set spurs to my weary horse and cantered
up the bridle path, leaving the Mill House on my left, and as I went,
the beat of his hoofs seemed to echo the old man's words, 'All dead, all
dead!' Doubtless Lily was dead also, or if she was not dead, when the
tidings came that I had been drowned at sea, she would have married.
Being so fair and sweet she would surely not have lacked for suitors,
nor could it be believed that she had worn her life away mourning over
the lost love of her youth.
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