“Grown careless,” he said.  “Regular throwing away of his life.”

Careless Herbert might have been, but Julius wondered whether this might not be losing of the life to find it.

Cranstoun or Cranky arrived, a charming old nurse, much gratified in the midst of her grief, and inclination to scold.  She summarily sent off Mungo and Tartar by the conveyance that brought her, and would have sent Rollo away, but that Herbert protested against it, and no power short of an order from him would have taken the dog from his bedside.

And Mr. Bindon returned from Wil’sbro’ in unspeakable surprise.  “The heroes of the occasion,” he said, “were Bowater and Mrs. Duncombe!  Every sick person I visited, and there were fourteen in all stages, had something to say of one or other.  Poor things, how their faces fell when they saw me instead of his bright, honest face!  ‘Cheering the very heart of one!’ as a poor woman said; ‘That’s what I calls a true shepherd,’ said an old man.  You don’t really mean he was rejected at the Ordination?’”

“Yes, and it will make him the still truer shepherd, if he is only spared!”

“The Sisters can’t say enough of him.  They thought him very ill yesterday, and implored him to take care of himself; but he declared he could not leave these two funerals to you.  But, after all, he is less amazing to me than Mrs. Duncombe.  She has actually been living at the hospital with the Sisters.  I should not have known her.”

“Great revolutions have happened in your absence.  Much that has drawn out her sterling worth, poor woman.”

“I shall never speak harshly again, I hope.  It seems to be a judgment on me that I should have been idling on the mountains, while those two were thus devoting themselves to my Master in His poor.”

“We are thankful enough to have you coming in fresh, instead of breaking down now.  Have you a sermon?  You will have to take Wil’sbro’ to-morrow.  Driver won’t come.  He wrote to the churchwardens that he had a cold, and that his agreement was with poor Fuller.”

“And you undertook the Sunday?”

“Yes.  They would naturally have no Celebration, and I thought Herbert’s preaching in the midst of his work would be good for them.  You never heard such an apology and confession as the boy made to our people the first Sunday here, begging them to bear with him.”

“Then I can’t spare you anything here?”

“Yes, much care and anxiety.  The visitation has done its worst in our house.  We have got into the lull after the storm, and you need not be anxious about me.  There is peace in what I have to do now.  It is gathering the salvage after the wreck.”

Then Julius went into his own house, where he found Terry alone, and, as usual, ravenously hungry.

“Is Bowater really ill?” he asked.

“I am afraid there is no believing otherwise, Terry,” said Julius.  “You will have to spare Rose to him sometimes, till some one comes to nurse him.”