Bob Smallpiece and a police-inspector busied themselves that night at Wormleyton Pits. The pits were none of them deep—six feet at most. At the bottom of the deepest they found old May’s lantern, with the glass broken and the candle overrun and extinguished; and the gravel was spotted with marks which, in the clearer light of the morning, were seen to be marks of blood. It was useless to look for foot-prints. The ground was dry, and, except in the pits themselves, it was covered with heather, whereon no such traces were possible. And this was all the police had to say at the inquest, whereat the jury gave a verdict of Accidental Death. For the old man had died, as was medically certified after post-mortem examination, of brain-laceration produced by fracture of the base of the skull; and the fracture was caused by percussion from a blow on the upper part of the head—a blow probably suffered by falling backward into the pit and striking the head against a large stone embedded at the bottom. Everything suggested such an explanation. Above the steepest wall of the pit, over which the fall must have chanced, The days were bad dreams to Johnny. He found himself continually repeating in his mind that gran’dad was dead, gran’dad was dead; as though he were His mother and his sister went about household duties silently, not often apart. They were comforted in companionship, it seemed, but solitude brought tears and heartbreak. Nan May’s London upbringing caused her some thought of what her acquaintances there would have called a “proper” funeral. But here the machinery of such funerals must be brought from a distance, thus becoming doubly expensive; and this being the case, cottagers made very little emulation at such times, and a walking funeral—perhaps at best a cab from the rank at Loughton station—satisfied most. Moreover, the old man himself had many a time preached strong disapproval of money wasted on funerals; had, indeed, prophesied that if any costliness were wasted on him, he would rise from his coffin and kick a mute. So now that the time had come, a Theydon carpenter made the coffin, and a cab from Loughton was the whole show. The old man’s relations were not, and of Nan May’s most still alive were forgotten; for in the forest cottage the little family had been secluded from such connections, as by sundering seas. At first they had seemed too near for correspondence, and then they had been found too far for visiting. Uncle Isaac came to the funeral, It was a short coffin, accommodated under the cabman’s seat with no great protrusion at the ends; what there was being covered decently with a black cloth. And the cab held the mourners easily: Johnny and Bessy in their Sunday clothes, their mother in hers (they had always been black since she was first a widow) and Uncle Isaac in a creasy suit of lustrous black, oddly bunched and wrinkled at the seams: the conventional Sunday suit of his generation of artisans, folded carefully and long preserved, and designed to be available alike for church and for such funerals as might come to pass. A brisk wind stirred the trees, and flung showers of fallen leaves after the shabby old four-wheeler as it climbed the lanes that led up to the little churchyard; where the sexton and his odd man waited with planks and ropes by the new-dug grave. It was a bright afternoon, but a fresh chill in the wind hinted the coming of winter. A belated Red Admiral seemed to chase the cab, fluttering this way or that, now by one window, now by the other, and again away over the hedge-top. Nothing was said. Now and again Johnny took his eyes from the open window to look at his companions. His mother, opposite, sat, pale and worn, with her hands At last the cab stopped at the lych gate. Here Bob Smallpiece unexpectedly appeared, to lend a hand with the coffin. So that with the sexton, and the carpenter who was the undertaker, Uncle Isaac, and the keeper, the cabman’s help was not wanted. The cabman lingered a moment, to shift cloths and aprons, and to throw a glance or two after the little company as it followed the clergyman, and then he hastened to climb to his seat and drive after a young couple that he spied walking in the main road; for they were strangers, and looked a likely fare back to the station. Johnny found church much as it was on Sunday, except that to-day they sat near the front, and that he From the grave’s edge one looked down over the country-side, green and hilly, and marked out in meadows by rows of elms, with hedges at foot. The wind came up briskly and set the dead leaves going again and again, chasing them among the tombs and casting them into the new red grave. Bessy was quiet no longer, but sobbed aloud, and Nan May took no more care to dry her eyes. Johnny made an effort that brought him near to choking, and then another; and then he fixed his attention on the cows in a meadow below, counted them with brimming eyes, and named them (for he knew them well) as accurately as the distance would let him. He would scarce trust himself to take a last look, with the others, at the coffin below and its bright tin plate, but fell straightway to watching a man mending thatch on a barn, and wondering that he wore neither coat nor waistcoat in such a fresh wind. And so, except for a stray tear or two, which nobody saw overflow from the brimming eyes, he faced it out, and walked away with the others under the curious gaze of the neighbours, who lined up by the path. And Smallpiece went off in The four mourners walked back by the lanes, in silence. Uncle Isaac bore the restraint with difficulty, and glanced uneasily at Nan May’s face from time to time, as though he were watching an opportunity to expound his sentiments at length. But Johnny saw nothing of this, for affliction was upon him. Now that gran’dad was passed away indeed—was buried, and the clods were rising quickly over him—now that even the coffin was gone from the cottage, and would never be seen again—it seemed that he had never understood before, and he awoke to the full bitterness of things. More, his effort at restraint was spent, and in the revulsion he found he could hold in no longer. He peeped into the thickets by the lane-side as he went, questing for an excuse to drop behind. Seeing no other, he stooped and feigned to tie his bootlace; calling, in a voice that quavered absurdly in trying to seem indifferent, “Go on, mother, I’m comin’ presently!” He dashed among the bushes, flung himself on the grass, and burst into a blind fury of tears, writhing as though under a shower of stinging blows. He had meant to cry quietly, but all was past control, and any might hear that chanced by. He scarce knew whether the fit had endured for seconds, minutes, or hours, when he was aware of his mother, sitting beside him and pressing With that he grew quieter and quieter still. “We mustn’t break down, Johnny boy—there’s hard struggles before us,” his mother said, smoothing back his hair. “An’ you must be very good to me, Johnny, you’re the man now!” He kissed her, and brushed the last of his tears away. “Yes, mother, I will,” he said. He rose, calmer, awake to new responsibilities, and felt a man indeed. Nothing remained of his outbreak but a chance-coming shudder in the breath, and, as he helped Bessy to her feet, he saw, five yards off, among the bushes, Uncle Isaac, under his very tall hat, gazing blankly at the group, and gently rubbing the Turk’s head on his stick among the loose grey whiskers that bordered his large face. |