To have beheld him, borne by nobles and liveried menials,
accompanied by ladies of title, up the avenue of an English park on his
way to be cared for in baronial halls, would, he knew, have added a
joy to the final moments of his grandmother, which the consolations of
religion could scarcely have met equally in competition. His own point
of view, however, would not, it is true, have been that of the old woman
in the black net cap and purple ribbons, but of a less reverent nature.
His enjoyment, in fact, would have been based upon that transatlantic
sense of humour, whose soul is glee at the incompatible, which would
have been full fed by the incongruity of "Little Willie being yanked
along by a bunch of earls, and Reuben S. Vanderpoel's daughters
following the funeral." That he himself should have been unconscious of
the situation seemed to him like "throwing away money."
The doctor arriving after he had been put to bed found slight concussion
of the brain and a broken leg. With Lady Anstruthers' kind permission,
it would certainly be best that he should remain for the present where
he was. So, in a bedroom whose windows looked out upon spreading lawns
and broad-branched trees, he was as comfortably established as was
possible.
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