justitiaries feared to make an ado, or hold any public enquiry about my dear father's death. They would all have had to ride home at night, and who could say what might betide them? Least said soonest mended, because less chance of breaking.
So we buried him quietly—all except my mother, indeed, for she could not keep silence—in the sloping little churchyard of Oare, as meek a place as need be, with the Lynn brook down below it. There is not much of company there for anybody's tombstone, because the parish spreads so far in woods, and moors, without dwelling house. If we bury one man in three years, or even a woman or
child, we talk about it for three months, and say it must be our turn next, and scarcely grow accustomed to it, until we hear of another gone.
Annie was not allowed to come, because she cried so terribly; but she ran to the window, and saw it all, mooing there like a little calf, so frightened and so left alone. As for Eliza, she came with me, one on each side of mother, and not a tear was in her eyes, but sudden starts of wonder, and a new thing to be looked at unwillingly, yet curiously. Poor little thing! she was very clever, the only one of our family—thank God for the same—but none the more for that guessed she what it is to lose a father.
