O, Martha! sit down, I must tell you all about him;" and Elizabeth
went over the pitiful story, and talked about it, until both women
were weary with weeping. The next morning they hung Antony's picture
between that of his father and mother. It had been taken just after
his return from college, in the very first glory of his youthful
manhood, and Elizabeth looked fondly at it, and linked it only with
memories of their happy innocent childhood, and with the grand
self-abnegation of "the dead man's journey."
The news of Antony's death caused a perceptible reaction in popular
feeling. The young man, after a hard struggle with adverse fate, had
paid the last debt, and the great debt. Good men refrain from judging
those who have gone to God's tribunal. Even his largest creditors
evinced a disposition to take, with consideration, their claim, as
the estate could pay it; and some willingness to allow at last, "thet
Miss Hallam hed done t' right thing." The fact of the Whaley Brothers
turning her defenders rather confounded them. They had a profound
respect for "t' Whaleys;" and if "t' Whaleys were for backin' up Miss
Hallam's ways," the majority were sure that Miss Hallam's ways were
such as commended themselves to "men as stood firm for t' law and t'
land o' England." With any higher test they did not trouble themselves.
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