Part 8 (1/2)

David nodded his usual salutation as he answered. He would sometimes relax so far as to say ”Sir” to Mr. Hastings, an honour paid exclusively to his pastoral capacity. ”No, it won't last, sir. We shall have the warm weather back again.”

”You think so!” exclaimed the Rector in an accent of disappointment.

Experience had taught him that David, in regard to the weather, was an oracle.

”I am sure so,” answered David. ”The b'rometer's going fast on to heat, too.”

”Is it?” said Mr. Hastings. ”You have often told me you put no faith in the barometer.”

”No more I don't: unless other signs answer to it,” said David. ”The very best b'rometer going, is old father's rheumatiz. There was a sharp frost last night, sir.”

”I know it,” replied Mr. Hastings. ”A few nights of that and the fever will be driven away.”

”We shan't get a few nights of it,” said David. ”And the fever has broken out again.”

”What!” exclaimed Mr. Hastings. ”The fever broken out again?”

”Yes,” said David.

The news fell upon the clergyman's heart as a knell. He had fully believed the danger to have pa.s.sed away, though not yet the sickness.

”Are you sure it has broken out again, David?” he asked, after a pause.

”I ain't no surer than I was told, sir,” returned phlegmatic David. ”I met c.o.x just now, and he said, as he pa.s.sed, that fever had shown itself in a fresh place.”

”Do you know where?” inquired Mr. Hastings.

”He said, I b'lieve, but I didn't catch it. If I stopped to listen to the talk of fevers, and such-like, where would my work be?”

Taking his hat, one of the very clerical shape, with a broad brim, the Rector left his house. He was scarcely without the gates when he saw Mr.

Snow, who was the most popular doctor in Prior's Ash, coming along quickly in his gig. Mr. Hastings threw out his hand, and the groom pulled up.

”Is it true?--this fresh rumour of the fever?”

”Too true, I fear,” replied Mr. Snow. ”I am on my way thither now; just summoned.”

”Who is attacked?”

”Sarah Anne Grame.”

The name appeared to startle the Rector. ”Sarah Anne Grame!” he repeated. ”She will never battle through it!” The doctor raised his eyebrows, as if he thought it doubtful himself, and signed to his groom to hasten on.

”Tell Lady Sarah I will call upon her in the course of the day,” called out Mr. Hastings, as the gig sped on its way. ”I must ask Maria if she has heard news of this,” he continued, in soliloquy, as he turned within the Rectory gate.

Maria Hastings had found her way to the study. To dignify a room by the appellation of ”study” in a clergyman's house, would at once imply that it must be the private sanctum of its master, consecrated to his sermons and his other clerical studies. Not so, however, in the Rectory of All Souls. The study there was chiefly consecrated to litter, and the master had less to do with it, personally, than with almost any other room in the house. There, the children, boys and girls, played, or learned lessons, or practised; there, Mrs. Hastings would sit to sew when she had any work in hand too plebeian for the eyes of polite visitors.

Grace, the eldest of the family, was twenty years of age, one year older than Maria. She bore a great resemblance to her father; and, like him, was more practical than imaginative. She was very useful, in the house, and took much care off Mrs. Hastings's hands. It happened that all the children, five of them besides Maria, were this morning at home. It was holiday that day with the boys. Isaac was next to Maria, but nearly three years younger; one had died between them; Reginald was next; Harry last; and then came a little girl, Rose. They ought to have been preparing their lessons; were supposed to be doing so by Mr. and Mrs.

Hastings: in point of fact, they were gathering round Grace, who was seated on a low stool solving some amusing puzzles from a new book. They started up when Maria entered, and went dancing round her.

Maria danced too; she kissed them all; she sang aloud in her joyousness of heart. What was it that made that heart so glad, her life as a very Eden? The ever-constant presence there of George G.o.dolphin.

”Have you come home to stay, Maria?”