Mr. Dodge has a codicil to his story at The George and Vulture now, and expresses his infinite satisfaction at the fact that “that ’ere Coe” came to grief in the end, as he had so richly deserved to do.  “I don’t doubt,” says he, “that while he was underground with the bats and rats he thought of that poor lad as he had treated so spiteful.  Things mostly does work round all right” (he would add) “under Providence, whose motto (if I may say so without disrespect) is summat like mine:  ’Let us have no misunderstandings and no obligation.’” On the other hand, what “sticks in Mr. Dodge’s throat,” as he expresses it, and is “a’most enough to make a man an infidel,” is, that “the widow of that ’ere Coe—­she as was young Yorke’s ruin—­is living at Crompton (in the very house his father had) with all her brood.”

Mr. Dodge is right in his facts, if not in his deductions.  Out of the proceeds of the mine the whole home-estate of Crompton has been purchased by Charles Coe, or rather by his wife; and they both dwell there quite unconscious that he is the lineal descendant of the mad Carew, with whose wild exploits the country side still teems.  If the old blood shows itself, it is but in quick starts of temper, and occasional “cursory remarks,” which sound quite harmless in halls that have echoed to the Squire’s thunderous tones; and even at such times Agnes can calm him with a word.  If the open hand which is Bred in the Bone with him scatters its largesse somewhat broadcast, the revenues of Crompton, thanks to her, are in the main directed to good ends.  In that stately mansion, whose hospitality is as proverbial though less promiscuous than of old, not only is there room for Mrs. Coe the elder to dwell with her young folks, without jar, but in a certain ground-floor chamber, the same he used to inhabit in old times, there dwells an ancient divine, once Carew’s chaplain.  He is still hale and stout, and has a quiet air that becomes his age and calling.  Life’s fitful fever is past, and he lives on in calm.  The children—­for there is small chance of Crompton being heirless in time to come—­are very fond of him; and grandmamma spends so much time in the old gentleman’s apartments, that Charley declares it is quite scandalous.  What can Parson Whymper and she have to talk about in common?  In spite of the attractions of her beautiful home, and the infirmities of advancing years, not a summer passes without Mrs. Coe the elder revisiting Gethin.  The castled rock, up which she used to run so lightly, is beyond her powers; she is content to gaze on that with dewy eyes; but she never fails to seek the church-yard on the hill.

“He was what one would call a hardish husband to her, was old Solomon,” say the neighbors; “and yet you see, when a man is dead, how a wife will keep his memory green!”

THE END