Three generations

THE OLD YEOMAN'S FUNERAL 61
say that it was the wish of his heart that the cousins
should marry — a wish naturally ungratified. Harry
Gibb would sit at his window and watch for me, a little
girl of six coming from school in the middle of her
companions, and if she did not have the medal of her
class hanging round her neck, the hot temper of the
man who had refused to be crossed, who had nearly
throttled the maitre d'armes, would make a last show,
and my champion would not hesitate to attribute the
lack of the distinctive ornament to gross injustice and
a fraud on the part of the rascally schoolmaster! Her
poor old grandfather could not move to see the wrong
righted, but he did wonder of what her father could be
thinking that he was not setting out at once to call the
scoundrel to account.
When the old yeoman — a broken, failed man in
his dotage — passed away, his funeral was attended by
gentle and simple and by a host of the poor, and was
one of the largest ever seen in the town. It was the
irresistible tribute to the man who had been the most
loyal of friends and the kindest of masters, who so
long as he had a penny to halve had shared it with
his destitute brothers and sisters.