The Darley who had been killed was the son of the vicar's gardener, and Dr Wilson's sympathies as a man had been all on the bereaved father's side.

But then he had received, as the oldest magistrate in the neighbourhood, a letter from the captain of the _Aurora_, explanatory and exculpatory.

Darley had been resisting the orders of an officer in his Majesty's service.

What would become of due subordination and loyalty, and the interests of the service, and the chances of beating those confounded French, if such conduct as Darley's was to be encouraged?
(Poor Darley! he was past all evil effects of human encouragement now!) So the vicar mumbled hastily over a sermon on the text, 'In the midst of life we are in death'; which might have done as well for a baby cut off in a convulsion-fit as for the strong man shot down with all his eager blood hot within him, by men as hot-blooded as himself.

But once when the old doctor's eye caught the up-turned, straining gaze of the father Darley, seeking with all his soul to find a grain of holy comfort in the chaff of words, his conscience smote him.