“The song of the crow!” said the poet.

He went up to his attic room and closed the door.  So quiet was the village that a score of people heard the roar of the great pistol.  They flocked thither, and up the stairs where the smoke, issuing, drew their notice.

The men laid the body of the poet upon his bed, awkwardly arranging it to conceal the torn plumage of the poor black crow.  The women chattered in a luxury of zealous pity.  Some of them ran to tell Yvonne.

M. Papineau, whose nose had brought him there among the first, picked up the weapon and ran his eye over its silver mountings with a mingled air of connoisseurship and grief.

“The arms,” he explained, aside, to the cure, “and crest of Monseigneur, the Marquis de Beaupertuys.”

II

THE GUARDIAN OF THE ACCOLADE

Not the least important of the force of the Weymouth Bank was Uncle Bushrod.  Sixty years had Uncle Bushrod given of faithful service to the house of Weymouth as chattel, servitor, and friend.  Of the colour of the mahogany bank furniture was Uncle Bushrod—­thus dark was he externally; white as the uninked pages of the bank ledgers was his soul.  Eminently pleasing to Uncle Bushrod would the comparison have been; for to him the only institution in existence worth considering was the Weymouth Bank, of which he was something between porter and generalissimo-in-charge.

Weymouth lay, dreamy and umbrageous, among the low foothills along the brow of a Southern valley.  Three banks there were in Weymouthville.  Two were hopeless, misguided enterprises, lacking the presence and prestige of a Weymouth to give them glory.  The third was The Bank, managed by the Weymouths—­and Uncle Bushrod.  In the old Weymouth homestead—­the red brick, white-porticoed mansion, the first to your right as you crossed Elder Creek, coming into town—­lived Mr. Robert Weymouth (the president of the bank), his widowed daughter, Mrs. Vesey—­called “Miss Letty” by every one—­and her two children, Nan and Guy.  There, also in a cottage on the grounds, resided Uncle Bushrod and Aunt Malindy, his wife.  Mr. William Weymouth (the cashier of the bank) lived in a modern, fine house on the principal avenue.

Mr. Robert was a large, stout man, sixty-two years of age, with a smooth, plump face, long iron-gray hair and fiery blue eyes.  He was high-tempered, kind, and generous, with a youthful smile and a formidable, stern voice that did not always mean what it sounded like.  Mr. William was a milder man, correct in deportment and absorbed in business.  The Weymouths formed The Family of Weymouthville, and were looked up to, as was their right of heritage.

Uncle Bushrod was the bank’s trusted porter, messenger, vassal, and guardian.  He carried a key to the vault, just as Mr. Robert and Mr. William did.  Sometimes there was ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand dollars in sacked silver stacked on the vault floor.  It was safe with Uncle Bushrod.  He was a Weymouth in heart, honesty, and pride.