The king was dead. But not at once, not until after some short breathing-space,such as was pleasant enough to those whose only concern with the succession layin the shouting, could the cry of “Long live the king!” be raised.For a few days there was no rector of Claversham. The living was during thistime in abeyance, or in the clouds, or in the lap of the law, or in any strangeand inscrutable place you choose to name. It may have been in the prescience ofthe patron, and, if so, no locality could be more vague, the whereabouts ofLord Dynmore himself, to say nothing of his prescience, being as uncertain aspossible. Messrs. Gearns & Baker, his solicitors and agents, should haveknown as much upon this point as any one; yet it was their habit to tell oneinquirer that his lordship was in the Cordilleras, and another that he was onthe slopes