People continued to appear, and among them walked an elderly man, a woman and a girl.  They were Mr. Ernest Churchouse, of ‘The Magnolias,’ with his widowed housekeeper, Mary Dinnett, and her daughter, Sabina.  The girl was nineteen, dark and handsome, and very skilled in her labour.  None disputed her right to be called first spinner at the mills.  She was an impulsive, ambitious maiden, and Mr. Best, foreman at the works, claimed for her that she brought genius as well as understanding to her task.  Sabina joined her friend, Nancy Buckler; Mrs. Dinnett, who had been a mill hand in her youth, took a seat beside Sally Groves, and Mr. Churchouse paced alone.  He was a round-faced, clean-shaven man with mild, grey eyes and iron grey hair.  He looked gentle and genial.  His shoulders were high, and his legs short.  Walking irked him, for a sedentary life and hearty appetite had made him stout.

The fall of Henry Ironsyde served somewhat to waken Ernest Churchouse from the placid dream in which he lived, shake him from his normal quietude, and remind him of the flight of time.  He and the dead man were of an age and had been boys together.  Their fathers founded the Bridetown Spinning Mill, and when the elder men passed away, it was Henry Ironsyde who took over the enterprise and gradually bought out Ernest Churchouse.  But while Ironsyde left Bridetown and lived henceforth at Bridport, that he might develop further interests in the spinning trade, Ernest had been well content to remain there, enjoy his regular income and live at ‘The Magnolias,’ his father’s old-world house, beside the river.  His tastes were antiquarian and literary.  He wrote when in the mood, and sometimes read papers at the Mechanics’ Institute of Bridport.  But he was constitutionally averse from real work of any sort, lacked ambition, and found all the fame he needed in the village community with which his life had been passed.  He was a childless widower.  Mr. Churchouse strolled now into the churchyard to look at the grave.  It opened beside that of Henry Ironsyde’s parents and his wife.  She had been dead for fifteen years.  A little crowd peered down into the green-clad pit, for the sides, under the direction of John Best, had been lined with cypress and bay.  The grass was rank, but it had been mown down for this occasion round the tombs of the Ironsydes, though elsewhere darnel rose knee deep and many venerable stones slanted out of it.  Immediately south of the churchyard wall stood the Mill, and Benny Cogle, engineman at the works, who now greeted Mr. Churchouse, dwelt on the fact.

“Morning, sir,” he said, “a brave day for the funeral, sure enough.”

“Good morning, Benny,” answered the other.  His voice was weak and gentle.

“When I think how near the church and Mill do lie together, I have thoughts,” continued Benny.  He was a florid man of thirty, with tow-coloured hair and blue eyes.

“Naturally.  You work and pray here all inside a space of fifty yards.  But for my part, Benny Cogle, I am inclined to think that working is the best form of praying.”