Towards nine the “maister men” of Wythburn began to arrive at Shoulthwaite.  Such of them as intended to accompany the remains of their fellow-dalesman to their resting place at Gosforth came on mountain ponies, which they dismounted in the court and led into a spare barn.  Many came on foot, and of these by much the larger part meant to accompany the cortege only to the top of the Armboth Fell, and, having “sett” it so far, to face no more of the more than twenty miles of rough country that lay between the valley and the churchyard on the plains by the sea.

Matthew Branthwaite was among the first to arrive.  The old weaver was resplendent in the apparel usually reserved for “Cheppel Sunday.”  The external elevation of his appearance from the worn and sober brown of his daily “top-sark” seemed to produce a corresponding elevation of the weaver’s spirit.  Despite the solemnity of the occasion, he seemed tempted to let fall a sapient proverb of anything but a funereal tone.  On stepping into the kitchen and seeing the provision that had been made for a repast, he did indeed intimate his intention of assisting at the ceremony in the language of the time-honored wren who cried “I helps” as she let a drop of water fall into the sea.  At this moment the clergyman from the chapel-of-ease on the Raise arrived at the Moss, and Matthew prepared to put his precept into practice.

The priest, Nicholas Stevens by name, was not a Cumbrian.  He had kept his office through three administrations, and to their several forms of legislation he had proved equally tractable.  His spirit of accommodation had not been quite so conspicuous in his dealings with those whom he conceived to be beneath him.  But in truth he had left his parishioners very largely to their own devices.  When he was moved to come among them, it was with the preoccupied air not so much of the student or visionary as of a man who was isolated from those about him by combined authority, influence, and perhaps superior blood.  He now took his seat at the head of the table with the bearing of one to whom it had never occurred to take a lower place.  He said little at first, and when addressed he turned his face slowly round to him who spoke with an air of mingled abstraction and self-satisfaction, through which a feeble smile of condescension struggled and seemed to say in a mild voice, “Did you speak?”

Matthew sat at the foot of the table, and down each side were seated the dalesmen, to the number of twenty-four.  There were Thomas Fell and Adam Rutledge, Job Leathes and Luke Cockrigg, John Jackson of Armboth, and little Reuben Thwaite.

His reverence cut up the ham into slices as formal as his creed, while old Matthew poured out the contents of two huge black jacks.  Robbie Anderson carried the plates to and fro; Mrs. Branthwaite and Liza served out the barley and oaten bread.

The breakfast was hardly more than begun when the kitchen door was partially opened, and the big head of a little man became visible on the inner side of it, the body and legs of the new-comer not having yet arrived in the apartment.