It was a large funeral, though there were not many funeral guests.

Five ladies, an aunt and four cousins, of Lord Loudwater's own generation, came down from London.

The younger generation was either on its way back from the war, or too busy with its work to find the time to attend the funeral of a distant relation, whom, if they had chanced to meet him, they neither liked nor respected.

But there was a show of carriages from all the big houses within a radius of nine miles, which more than made up for the fewness of the guests.

Also, there was a crowd of middle- and lower-class spectators who considered the funeral of a murdered nobleman a spectacle indeed worth attending.