Thanks more to the diplomacy of Nathan Baskerville than Ned's own skill in reconciliation, Cora forgave her lover and their marriage day was fixed. Not a few noticed that the master of 'The White Thorn' held this union much to heart, and indeed appeared more interested in its achievement than any other save Ned himself.
A change had come over Nathan and his strength failed him. The affection of his throat gained upon him and his voice grew weaker. He resented allusions to the fact and declared that he was well. Only his doctor and Priscilla Lintern knew the truth; and only she understood that much more than physical tribulation was responsible for the innkeeper's feverish activity of mind and unsleeping energy poured forth in secret upon affairs.
The extent of this immense diligence and devotion was hidden even from her. She supposed that a temporary cloud had passed away; and she ceased not, therefore, from begging him to save his powers and so afford himself an opportunity to recover.
But the man believed that he was doomed, and suspected that his life could only be held upon uncertain tenure of months.
The doctor would not go so far as this gloomy opinion; yet he did not deny that it might be justified.
Nathan felt no doubt in his own mind, and he believed that Cora's wedding was the last considerable event of a personal and precious nature that he could hope to see accomplished.
Afterwards, but not until he found himself upon his deathbed, the innkeeper designed a confession. Circumstances and justice, as he conceived it, must make this avowal private; but those most interested were destined to know the hidden truth concerning themselves. He had debated the matter with Priscilla, since decision rested with her; but she was of his mind and, indeed, had been the first to suggest this course.
Cora's shopping roused all the household of Undershaugh to a high pitch of exasperation. Much to the girl's surprise her mother produced fifty pounds for a wedding outfit, and the bride employed agreeable days in Plymouth while she expended this handsome gift.
A house had been taken at Plympton. The face of it was 'genteel' in Cora's estimation; but the back was not. However, the rear premises satisfied Ned, and its position with respect to town and country suited them both.
There remained contracts and settlements, in which Nathan Baskerville represented both parties. Ned was generous and indifferent; Cora exhibited interest and a faculty for grasping details. She told herself that it was only reasonable and wise to do so.
At any time the reckless Ned might break his neck; at any time the amorous Ned might find her not all-sufficing. No sentiment obscured Cora's outlook. She astounded Nathan Baskerville by the shrewdness of her stipulations.
Few prophesied much joy of this marriage, and even Priscilla, albeit Nathan was impatient at her doubts, none the less entertained misgivings. She knew the truth of her daughter, and had long since learned the truth concerning young Baskerville.
Those who desired to comfort her foretold that man and wife would go each their own way and mind each their own business and pleasure. Not the most sanguine pretended to suppose that Ned and Cora would unite in any bonds of close and durable affection.
The man's mother trusted that Cora's common-sense and practical spirit might serve as a steady strain to curb his slothful nature; but May Baskerville was the only living soul who, out of her warm heart and trusting disposition, put faith in his marriage to lift her brother toward a seemly and steadfast position in the ranks of men.
At Hawk House the subject of the wedding might not be mentioned. In consequence renewed coolness had arisen between the brothers. Then came a rumour to Humphrey's ear that Nathan was ill, and he felt concern. The old man had no eye to mark physical changes. He was slow to discern moods or read the differences of facial expression, begot by mental trouble on the one hand and bodily suffering on the other.
Now, greatly to his surprise, he heard that Nathan began to be very seriously indisposed. The news came to him one morning a month before Cora's wedding. Heathman Lintern called upon the subject of a stallion, and mentioned casually that Humphrey's brother had lost his voice and might never regain it.
"'Tis terrible queer in the bar at 'The White Thorn' not to hear him and to know we never may no more," he said. "He's gone down and down very gradual; but now he can only whisper. 'Tis a wisht thing to lose the power of speech—like a living death, you might say."
"When did this happen? I've marked no change, though 'tis a good few weeks now since I spoke with him."
"It comed gradual, poor chap."
Humphrey rose and prepared on the instant to start for Shaugh.
"I must see the man," he said. "We're out for the minute owing to this wedding. But, since he's fallen ill, I must go to him. We'll hope 'tis of no account."
They set out together and Heathman was mildly surprised to learn the other's ignorance.
"He keeps it so close; but you can't hide your face. We've all marked it. The beard of the man's grown so white as if the snow had settled on it, and his cheeks be drawed too. For my part I never felt nothing in life to make me go down-daunted afore, except when your son Mark died; but, somehow, Nat Baskerville be a part of the place and the best part. I've got a great feeling towards him. 'Tis making us all very uncomfortable. Especially my mother. He talks to her a lot, feeling how more than common wise she be; and she knows a lot about him. She's terrible down over it and, in fact, 'tis a bad job all round, I'm afraid."
Humphrey's answer was to quicken his pace.
"He kept it from me," he replied. "I suppose he thought I ought to have seen it for myself. Or he might have wrongly fancied I didn't care."
"Everybody cares—such a wonderful good sort as him. 'Twill cast a gloom over this blessed wedding. I wish to God 'twas over and done with—the wedding, I mean—since it's got to be."
"Why do you wish that?"
"Because I'm sick of the thing and that awnself[1] baggage, my sister. God's truth! To watch her getting ready. Everything's got to go down afore her, like the grass afore the scythe. You may work your fingers to the bone and never get a thank you. I had a row with her last night, and she got lashing me with her tongue till I rose up and fetched her a damned hard box on the ear, grown woman though she is. My word, it tamed her too! 'There!' I said. 'That's better than all the words in the dictionary. You keep your snake's tongue between your teeth,' I said. There's no answering her with words, but if her husband has got a pinch of sense, which he hasn't, he'll do well to give her a hiding at the start. It acted like a charm."
[1]Awnself—selfish.
"Don't want to hear nothing about that. They're making their own bed, and 'twill be uneasy lying," said Humphrey. "Leave them, and talk of other things."
"Very pleased," answered Lintern. "Ban't a subject I'm fond of. Undershaugh without Cora would be a better place to live in—I know that and I say it. And my mother knows it too; though say it she won't."
They talked on various subjects, and Heathman informed Mr. Baskerville that he would soon be a great-uncle.
"Rupert's wife be going to have a babby—that's the last news. I heard it yester-eve at 'The White Thorn.'"
"Is that so? They might have told me, you'd think. Yet none has. They kept it from me."
"Holding it for a surprise; or maybe they didn't think 'twould interest you."
"No doubt that was the reason," answered Humphrey.
And then he spoke no more, but worked his own thoughts into a ferment of jealous bitterness until the village was reached. Arrived, he took no leave of Heathman, but forgot his presence and hastened to the inn. Nathan was standing at the door in his apron, and the brothers entered together.
"What's this I hear?" said Humphrey as they entered the other's private chamber.
"Well, I'm ill, to be frank. In fact, very ill. I'd hoped to hide it up till after the wedding; but my voice has pretty well gone, you see. Gone for good. You'll never hear it again. But that won't trouble you much—eh?"
"I should have marked something wrong when last we met, no doubt. But you angered me a bit, and angry men are like drunken ones; their senses fail them. I didn't see or hear what had happed to you. Now I look and listen, I mark you're bad. What does the doctor say?"
"'Tis what he don't say. But I've got it out of him. He took me to Plymouth a month ago—to some very clever man there. I've talked such a lot in my life that I deserve to be struck dumb—such a chatterbox as I have been."
"Is that all?"
"For the present. We needn't go beyond that. I shall soon get used to listening instead of talking. Maybe I'll grow wiser for it."
"That wasn't all they told you?"
Nathan looked round and shut the door which stood ajar behind them.
"There's no hiding anything from you that you want to find out. As a matter of fact, I'm booked. I know it. 'Tis only a question of—of months—few or many. They give me time to put things as straight—as straight as I can."
"So like as not they lie. You'll do better to go off to London while you may, and get the best opinion up there."
"I would, if 'twas only to pleasure you. But that's no use now."
"Can you let down your food easy?"
Nathan shook his head.
"I dare not eat in company no more," he said; "it's here." He put his hand to his throat and then drew it down.
"You don't suffer, I hope?"
Nathan nodded.
"I can tell you, but I trust you not to let it out to any soul. We must have the wedding off cheerful and bright. I shall keep going till then, if I'm careful. Only a month now."
"You ought to be lying up close, and never put your nose out this coarse weather."
"Time enough. Leave it now. I'm all right. I've had a good life—better than you might think for. I wish for my sake, and knowing that I've got my end in sight, you'd do the last thing you can for me and countenance this wedding. Perhaps I've no right to ask; but if you knew—if you knew how hard life can be when the flesh gives way and there's such a lot left to do and think about. If you only knew——"
"You say 'the last thing I can do for you.' Are you sure of that?"
A strange and yearning expression crossed the face of the younger man. He stroked his beard nervously and Humphrey, now awake to physical accidents, marked that his hands were grown very thin and his skin had taken on it a yellowish tinge of colour.
There was silence between them for some moments. Then Nathan shook his head and forced a smile upon his face.
"Nothing else—nothing at all. But it's no small thing that I ask. I know that. You've a right to feel little affection for either of them—Ned or Cora. But my case is different. Cora's mother——"
Again he stopped, but Humphrey did not speak.
"Cora's mother has been a good friend to me in many ways. She is a clever woman and can keep her own counsel. There's more of Priscilla Lintern in Cora than you might think. You'll never know how terribly Cora felt Mark's death; but she did. Only she hid it close. As to Ned——"
He began to cough and suffered evident pain in the process. When the cough ceased it was some time before he could speak. Then, to Humphrey's discomfort, his brother began to weep.
"There—there," he said, as one talks to a child. "What I can do, I'll do. God knows this is a harsh shock to me. I didn't dream of such a thing overtaking you. How old are you?"
"In my sixty-third year."
"Hope despite 'em. They don't know everything. Pray to the Almighty about it. You're weak. You ought to drink, if you can't eat. I'll come to the wedding and I'll give the woman a gift—for your sake and her mother's—not for her own."
Nathan, now unnerved, could not reply. But he took his brother's hand and held it.
"God bless you for this," he whispered. "If you could but understand me better and believe that with all my black faults I've meant well, I should die easier, Humphrey."
"Don't talk about dying. You're a bit low. I haven't forgotten when Mark went. Now 'tis my turn. Why don't you trust me?"
"You never trusted me, Humphrey."
The other darted a glance and Nathan's eyes fell.
"Never—and you were right not to," he added.
Humphrey rose.
"I'm your brother and your friend. I can't be different to what I am. I don't respect you—never did. But—well—a silly word most times, but I'll use it—I love you well enough. Why shouldn't I? You're my brother—all I've got left. I'm cut up about this. I wish I could lighten your load, and I'm willing to do it if 'tis in my power."
"You have. If you come to that wedding I shall die a happy man."
"That's nought. Ban't there anything deeper I can do—for you yourself and your peace of mind?"
Again Nathan struggled with his desires. But pride kept him silent. He could not tell the truth.
"No," he answered at last. "Nothing for me myself."
"Or for any other?"
The innkeeper became agitated.
"No, no. You've done a good day's work. No more for the present. I've not thrown up the sponge yet. Will you take a glass of the old sloe gin before you go?"
Humphrey shook his head.
"Not for me. When's the wedding?"
"Third of November."
"I shall be there, and your—Cora Lintern will have a letter from me next week."
"You make me a happier man than you know, Humphrey."
"Let it rest then. I'll see you again o' Sunday."
They parted, and while one put on his hat and hastened with tremulous excitement to Undershaugh, the other breasted the hill homewards, and buttoned his coat to the wind which sent leaves flying in wild companies at the spinney edge by Beatland Corner.
The sick man rejoiced upon his way; the hale man went moodily.
"I can do no more," said Humphrey to himself. "He's a Baskerville, despite the grip of death on him. Perhaps I was a fool to tell him I didn't respect him. He'll think of it again when he's got time for thought by night, and 'twill rasp home."
Following upon this incident it seemed for a season that Nathan's health mended. His disease delayed a little upon its progress, and he even hoped in secret that his brother might be right and the physicians wrong. He flashed with a spark of his old fire. He whispered jokes that woke noisy laughter. In secret he ticked off the days that remained before Ned and Cora should be married.
It wanted less than a fortnight to the event, and all was in readiness for it. Humphrey Baskerville had sent Cora twenty pounds, and she had visited him and thanked him personally for his goodness. The old man had also seen Ned, and although his nephew heard few compliments and came from the interview in a very indignant frame of mind, yet it was felt to be well that Humphrey had thus openly suffered the past to be obliterated.
Then came a midnight when Priscilla Lintern, lying awake and full of anxious thoughts, heard upon the silence a sound. At first she believed it to be the four feet of some wandering horse as he struck the ground with his hoofs in leisurely fashion, and slowly passed along the deserted road; then she perceived that it was the two feet of a man moving briskly and carrying him swiftly forward. The feet stopped, the outer wicket gate was opened, and some one came to the door. Priscilla's window looked forth from a thatched dormer above, and now she threw it up and leant out. She knew by intuition the name of the man below.
"Is that you, Jim?" she asked.
"Yes'm. Master's took cruel bad and can't fetch his breath. He knocked me up, and I went first for Miss Gollop, who was to home luckily. Then I comed for you."
Mrs. Lintern was already putting on her clothes.
"You'd best to go back," she said. "I'll be up over at once, after I've waked up my son and sent him riding for doctor."
Fifteen minutes later Heathman, still half asleep, cantered on a pony through a rainy night for medical help, and his mother hastened up to 'The White Thorn,' and steeled her heart for what she might find there.
She had long learned to conceal all emotion of spirit, and she knew that under no possible stress of grief or terror would truth have power to escape the prison of her heart.
The accident of a heavy cold had suddenly aggravated the morbid condition of Nathan Baskerville's throat, and set all doubt of the truth at rest. Often on previous occasions he had anticipated death at short notice, and prepared to face it; but now he trusted fate not to deal the final blow before his daughter's marriage. His only concern was to be on his feet again swiftly, that none of the plans for the wedding should be changed.
The doctor warned him that he was very ill, and took the gravest view of his condition; but Nathan, out of a sanguine heart, declared that he would make at least a transient recovery. He obeyed the medical man's directions very carefully, however; he kept his bed and put himself into the hands of the parish nurse.
In sombre triumph she came to this important case, and brought with her certain errors of judgment and idiosyncrasies of character that went far to counter-balance real ability begot of experience. She was a good nurse, but an obstinate and foolish woman. No more conscientious creature ruled a sick room or obeyed a doctor's mandate; but she added to her prescribed duties certain gratuitous moral ministrations which were not required by science or demanded by reason.
Mrs. Lintern saw Mr. Baskerville often, and sometimes shared the night watches with Eliza Gollop. The latter viewed her attentions to Nathan and her emotion before his suffering with a suspicious eye. But she reserved comment until after the end. The case was not likely to be a long one in her opinion. For one week little happened of a definite character, and during that time Nathan Baskerville saw his relations and several of his more intimate friends. Then ensued a malignant change, and at the dawn of this deterioration, after the doctor had left him, Miss Gollop sat alone with her patient and endeavoured to elevate his emotions.
"I've flashed a bit of light on a wandering soul at many a deathbed," she declared; "and I hope I shall be spared to do so at many more. There's not a few men and women that wouldn't hear me in health, but they listened, meek as worms, when the end was in sight, and they hadn't strength left to move an eye-lash. That's the time to drive truth home, Mr. Baskerville, and I've done it. But always cheerful, mind. I'm not the sort to give up hoping."
"I'm sure not," he whispered. "Wasn't Christ's first and last message hope?"
"Don't you talk. Let me do the talking. Yes, 'twas hope He brought into this hopeless world. But even hope can be trusted too much. You must put your hope in the next world now, not in this one, I'm afraid."
"Did he say so?"
"Yes—I knew he would. Death was in his eyes when he went out of your chamber. Still, there's plenty of time. Things may mend. He's going to send a new physic."
"What's the good of that if I've got to go?"
"You'll know presently, my poor man. 'Tis to ease what be bound to creep over you later on."
"Bodily pain's nought. Haven't I suffered all that man can suffer?"
"No, you haven't—not yet. Don't talk about that part. You shan't suffer while I'm here—not if I can help it in reason, and under doctor's orders. But I won't stray beyond them; I was never known to take anything upon myself, like some of they hospital chits, that call themselves nurses, do."
"When is Mrs. Lintern coming?"
Eliza's lips tightened.
"Very soon, without a doubt; though why, I can't ezacally say. Listen to me a little afore she's here. 'Tis my duty to say these things to you, and you're not one that ever stood between man or woman and their duty."
"I'll not see them married now. That's cruel hard after——"
"How can you say that? You may be there in the spirit, if not in the flesh. I suppose you ban't one of they godless ones that say ghosts don't walk? Haven't I beheld 'em with these eyes? Didn't I go down to Mrs. Wonnacott at Shaugh Bridge in the dimpsy of the evening two year ago; and didn't I see a wishtness coming along out of they claypits there? 'Tis well known I seed it; and if it weren't the spirit of Abraham Vosper, as worked there for fifty year and then was run over by his own team of hosses and fractured to death in five places, whose spirit was it? So you may be at your nephew's wedding with the best; and, for my part, I shall know you be there, and feel none the less cheerful for it."
"So much to do—so many to save—and no strength and no time—no time," he said.
The air was dark and hurtling with awful wings for Nathan Baskerville. He heard and saw the storm coming. But others would feel it. He was safe from the actual hurricane, but, by anticipation, dreadfully he endured it now. Death would be no release save from physical disaster. His place was with the living, not with the dead. Cruelly the living must need him presently; the dead had no need of him.
Miss Gollop supposed that she read her patient's heart.
"'Tis your own soul you must seek to save, Mr. Baskerville. None can save our souls but ourselves. And as for time, thanks to the rivers of blood Christ shed, there's always time for a dip in 'em. You're well thought on. But that's nought. 'Tis the bird's-eye view the Almighty takes that will decide. And our conscience tells us what that view's like to be. 'Tis a good sign you be shaken about it. The best sort generally are. I've seen an evil liver go to his doom like a babby dropping asleep off its mother's nipple; and I've seen a pious saint, such as my own father was, get into a terrible tear at the finish, as if he seed all the devils in hell hotting up against his coming."
She ministered to the sick man, then sat down and droned on again. But he was not listening; his strength had nearly gone, his gaiety had vanished for ever. Not a smile was left. The next world at this juncture looked inexpressibly vain and futile. He cared not a straw about it. He was only concerned with his present environment and the significance of passing from it at this juncture.
"Run out—all run out!" he whispered to himself.
Would there be no final parenthesis of strength to deal with the manifold matters now tumbling to chaos? Was the end so near? He brushed aside lesser things and began to think of the one paramount obligation.
"Why don't she come? Why don't she come?" he whispered; but Miss Gollop did not hear him.
This was a sort of moment when she felt the call of her faith mighty upon her. She had often inopportunely striven to drag a dying's man's mind away from earth to the spectacle of heaven and the immense difficulty of winning it.
"How many houses have you got, Mr. Baskerville?" she asked abruptly; and in a mechanical fashion he heard and answered her.
"Six—two here and four at Bickleigh; at least, they can't be called mine, I'm afraid, they're all——"
"And you'd give the lot for one little corner in a heavenly mansion—wouldn't you, Mr. Baskerville?"
"No doubt—no doubt," he said. "Don't talk for a bit. I'm broken; I'm terrible anxious; I must see—— Give me something to drink, please."
While she obeyed him Mrs. Lintern came in. The doctor, who had perceived her tragic interest in the patient, kept her closely informed of his condition, and Priscilla had learned within the hour that Nathan was growing worse.
Now she came, and Mr. Baskerville asked Miss Gollop to leave them.
"I can't think why," murmured Eliza. "I'm not generally told to go out except afore relations. Still, I can take my walk now instead of this afternoon. And if the new physic comes, don't you give him none, Mrs. Lintern, please. 'Tis very powerful and dangerous, and only for skilled hands to handle."
Neither spoke until the nurse had departed.
"And I shall be gone exactly twenty minutes and no more," she said. "I've got my reputation, I believe, if some of us haven't; but with chapel people——"
The exact problem respecting chapel people she left unstated, and in closing the door behind her made some unnecessary noise.
Then Priscilla folded Nathan in her arms and kissed him. He held her hand and shut his eyes while she talked; but presently he roused himself and indicated that the confession to his children must not in safety be longer delayed.
"I don't feel particular worse, though I had a bit of a fight for wind last night; but I am worse, and I may soon be a lot worse. They'd better all come to-day—this afternoon."
"They shall," she promised.
"If that was all—my God, if that was all, Priscilla!"
"It is all that matters."
"'Tis the least—the very least of it. Dark—dark wherever I turn. Plots miscarried, plans failed, good intentions all gone astray."
She thought that he wandered.
"Don't talk, 'tis bad for you. If you've got to go, go you must—God pity me without you! But you are all right, such a steadfast man as you. The poor will call you blessed, and your full tale of well-doing will never be told."
"Well-meaning, that's all—not well-doing. A dead man's motives don't count, 'tis his deeds we rate him by. He's gone. He can't explain what he meant. Pray for me to live a bit longer, Priscilla. Beg 'em for their prayers at the chapel; beg 'em for their prayers at church. I'm terrible, terrible frighted to go just now, and that's truth. Frighted for those I leave—for those I leave."
She calmed him and sought to banish his fears. But he entered upon a phase of mental excitement, deepening to frenzy. He was bathed in sweat and staring fixedly before him when the nurse returned.
After noon the man had regained his nerve and found himself ready for the ordeal. A dose of the new drug brought ease and peace. He was astonished and sanguine to feel such comfort. But his voice from the strain of the morning had almost become extinguished.
When Priscilla and his children came round him and the family were alone, he bade the woman speak.
"Tell them," he said. "I'm not feared to do it, since you wish them to know, but my throat is dumb."
Heathman stood at the bottom of the bed and his mother sat beside it. Cora and Phyllis were in chairs by the fire. They looked and saw Mrs. Lintern clasp her hands over Nathan Baskerville's. The act inspired her, and she met the astonished glances of her children.
"For all these years," she said, "you've been kept without hearing the truth, you three. You only knew I was a widow, and that Mr. Baskerville was a widower, and that we were friends always, and that he never married again because his dead wife didn't want him to. But there's more to know. After Mrs. Baskerville died, Nathan here found me an orphan girl, working for my living in a china and glass shop at Bath. I hadn't a relation or friend in the world, and he got to love me, and he wanted to marry me. But I wouldn't have it, because, in honour to his wife's relations, if he'd married me he'd have had to give up five thousand pound. And they would have taken very good care he did so. The law was his side, but truth was against it, since his wife gave him the money only if he didn't wed. She couldn't enforce such a thing, but he acted as if she could. I went to live with him, and you three children were born. Then, a bit after, he came back here, and of course I came with him. He's your father, but there's no call for any else to know it but us. I don't care, and never shall care if everybody knows it. A better man won't breathe God's air in this world than your father, and no woman have been blessed with a kinder husband in the eye of the Almighty. But there's you three to think of, and 'twould be against you if this was known now. He didn't even want to tell you; but I was determined that you should know it afore either of us died. And now it's pleased God to shorten your dear father's days; and you've got to hear that he is your father."
There was a silence.
"I ask them to forgive me," whispered Nathan Baskerville. "I ask my son and my daughters to forgive me for what I've done."
"No need for that," answered Priscilla. "Lie down and be easy, and don't get excited."
He had sat up and was holding his beard, and stroking it nervously.
Mrs. Lintern shook his pillow and took his hand again. Then she looked at her son, who stood with his mouth open, staring at the sick man. His expression indicated no dismay, but immense astonishment.
"Well, I'm damned!" he said. "This beats cock-fighting! You my father! And now you'm going to drop out—just when I might have been some use to you. There! what a 'mazing thing, to be sure."
"Call him by his right name then—for my sake, Heathman," urged his mother.
"Why—good God!—I will for his own," answered the man. "I don't care a curse about such things as laws and all the rest of it. He's been a rare good sort all his life; and no man could have a better father, whichever side the blanket he was got. I'll call him father, and welcome, and I wish to Christ he wasn't going to die."
Heathman came and took Nathan's hand, and his mother broke down at his words, buried her face in the counterpane and wept.
"Tell them to come over," whispered Mr. Baskerville to his son. "And thank you, and God bless you, son. You've done more than you know to lighten a cruel load."
"Come here, you two, and kiss your father," said Heathman.
The girls came, and first Phyllis kissed Nathan nervously, and then the touch that he hungered for rested a moment on his cheek. With Cora's kiss the tension subsided; he sank back, and Priscilla drew the sheet up to his beard, and again lifted the pillow.
"Now I shall go in some sort of peace, though an erring and a sinful man," he murmured. "If you can forgive me, so will my Saviour. And let this secret be a secret for ever. Remember that, all of you. 'Tis beyond human power to make you legitimate Baskervilles; but Baskervilles you are, and, please God, will lead a better and wiser life than I have led. No need to tell anybody the truth. Forgive your father, and forget him so soon as ever you can; but worship your mother always—to your dying day worship her; protect her and shield her, and stand between her and the rough wind, and be proud of having such a blessed brave woman for a mother."
"You needn't tell me that," said Heathman.
The other stopped, but held up his hand for silence. After a little rest he proceeded.
"The time's coming when she will need all the love and wit you've got among you. 'Tis no good talking much about that, and I haven't the human courage left to meet your hard faces, or tears, or frowns. All I say is, forgive me, and love your mother through thick and thin. All the blame is mine—none of it belongs to her."
He held his hand out to Cora. She was sitting on the edge of the bed looking out of the window.
"You'll remember, my Cora," he said. "And—and let me hear you call me 'father' just once—if you can bring yourself to do it."
"The money, dear father?" she asked.
He smiled, and it was the last time that he ever did so.
"Like my sensible Cora," he answered. But he did not continue the subject.
"You'd best all to go now," declared Priscilla. She rose and looked straight into the eyes of her children each in turn. The girls flinched; the son went to her and kissed her.
"Don't you think this will make any difference to me," said Heathman. "You're a damned sight too good a mother for me, whether or no—or for them women either; and this man here—our father, I should say—needn't worrit about you, for I'll always put you afore anything else in the world."
"And so will I, mother," said Phyllis.
"Of course, we all will," added Cora; "and the great thing must be for us all to keep as dumb as newts about it. 'Twould never do for it to come out—for mother's sake more than ours, even. I don't say it for our sakes, but for mother's sake, and for father's good name, too."
"Such wisdom—such wisdom!" said Nathan. "You've all treated me better than I deserved—far better. And God will reward you for such high forgiveness to a wicked wretch. I'll see you all again once before I die. Promise that. Promise you'll come again, Cora."
"I will come again," she said; "and please, father, make mother promise on her oath to be quiet and sensible and not run no risks. If it got out now—you never know. We're above such small things, but many people would cold shoulder us if they heard of it. You know what people are."
Her mother looked at her without love. The girl was excited; she began to appreciate the significance of what she had heard; her eyes were wet and her voice shook.
"I'll be 'quiet and sensible,' Cora Lintern," said the mother. "I've been 'quiet and sensible' for a good many years, I believe, and I shan't begin to be noisy and foolish now. You're quite safe. Better you all go away now and leave us for the present."
They departed silently, and, once below, the girls crept off together, like guilty things, to their home, while Lintern dallied in the bar below and drank. He was perfectly indifferent to the serious side of his discovery, and, save for his mother's sake, would have liked to tell the men in the bar all about it. He regarded it rather as a matter of congratulation than not. No spark of mercenary feeling touched his emotion. That he was a rich man's son had not yet occurred to him; but that he was a good man's son and a popular man's son pleased him.
Mrs. Lintern suffered no detraction in his eyes. He felt wonder when he considered her power of hiding this secret for so many years, and he experienced honest sorrow for her that the long clandestine union was now to end. The day's event, indeed, merely added fuel to the flame of his affection for her.
But it was otherwise with the sisters. Phyllis usually took on the colour of Cora's thought, and now the elder, with no little perspicacity, examined the situation from every point of view.
"The only really bright side it's got is that there'll be plenty of money, I suppose. I'd give a sovereign, Phyllis, to see the will. Father—how funny it sounds to say it—poor father was always terrible fond of me, and I've often wondered why for. Now, of course, 'tis easy to explain."
"What about the wedding?" asked Phyllis. "'Twill have to be cruel quiet now, I suppose."
"Certainly not," answered her sister. "'Twill have to be put off, that's all. I won't have a scrubbly little wedding smothered up in half mourning, or some such thing; but, come to think of it, we shan't figure among the mourners in any case—though we shall be among them really. 'Twill be terrible difficult to help giving ourselves away over this. I think the best thing would be for mother to take the money and clear out, and go and live somewhere else—the further off the better. For that matter, when the will's read, everybody will guess how it is."
"Heathman might go on with the public-house."
"Yes, he might. But I hope he'll do no such thing," answered her sister. "He's always the thorn in my side, and always will be. Don't know the meaning of the word 'decency.' However, he's not like to trouble us much when we're married. I shan't be sorry to change my name now, Phyllis. And the sooner you cease to be called Lintern, too, the better."
"About mother?"
"I shouldn't presume to say a word about mother, one way or the other," answered Cora. "I'm not a fool, and I'm not going to trouble myself about the things that other people do; but all the same, I shall be glad to get out of it and start with a clean slate among a different class of people."
"What amazing cleverness to hide it all their lives like that," speculated Phyllis. "I'm sure us never would have been so clever as to do it."
"It became a habit, no doubt. 'Twas salt to their lives, I reckon, and made 'em all the fonder of each other," declared Cora. "Everyday married life must have looked terrible tame to them—doing what they did. Their time was one long love-making in secret."
"I'm awful sorry for mother now, though," continued Phyllis; "because when he dies she can't put on weeds and go and hear the funeral sermon, and do all the things a proper widow does do."
"No," admitted her sister; "that she certainly can't. She'll have to hide the truth pretty close from this day forward, that's very clear. She owes that to me—and to you; and I shall see she pays her debt."
"She will, of course," replied the other. "She's a terrible brave woman, and always has been. She'll hide it up close enough—so close as we shall, for that matter. Heathman's the only one who's like to let it out. You know what a careless creature he is."
Cora frowned.
"I do," she said. "And I know there's no love lost between him and me. A coarse man, he is, and don't care what gutter he chooses his friends out of. Take one thing with another, it might be so well to marry Ned at the appointed time, and get it hard and fast."
So they talked, and misprized Heathman from the frosty standpoint of their own hearts. Rather than bring one shadow on his mother's fame, the brother of these girls would have bitten out his tongue and swallowed it.
Nathan Baskerville's bedroom faced the south. A text was nailed upon the wall over his head, and an old photograph of his father stood upon the mantelpiece. To right and left of this memorial appeared trinkets made of shells. A pair of old carriage lamps, precious from association, decorated either end of the mantelshelf. An old print of Niagara Falls, that his mother had valued, was nailed above it.
A white curtain covered the window, but there was no blind, for this man always welcomed daylight. On the window-ledge there languished a cactus in a pot. It was a gift under the will of an old dead woman who had tended it and cherished it for twenty years. One easy chair stood beside the bed, and on a table at hand were food and medicine.
Many came to see the dying man, and Humphrey Baskerville visited him twice or thrice in every week.
More than once Nathan had desired to speak of private matters to his brother, but now he lacked the courage, and soon all inclination to discuss mundane affairs departed from him.
There followed a feverish week, in which Nathan only desired to listen to religious conversation. Recorded promises of hope for the sinner were his penultimate interest on earth. He made use of a strange expression very often, and desired again and again to hear the Bible narrative that embraced it.
"'This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,'" he said to Humphrey and to many others. "I cling to that. It was spoken to a thief and a failure."
All strove to comfort him, but a great mental incubus haunted his declining hours. His old sanguine character seemed entirely to have perished; and its place was taken by spirits of darkness and of terror.
"'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,'" he said to Eliza Gollop, when she was alone with him. "If I'd marked that better, I might now have got beyond that stage and learned to love Him. But I'm in fear—my life hasn't took me further than that—all's fearful still."
"No need in your case, I hope, so far as mortal man can say," she answered. "'Tis natural to be uneasy when the journey's end falls in sight; and we all ought to be. But then comes Christ and casts out fear. You've a right, so far as man can say, to trust Him and fear nought."
"But man doesn't know. Yet He forgave the dying thief."
"He did so, though us have no right to say whether 'twas a bit of rare kindness in Him, or whether he made a practice of it. But for my part I steadfastly believe that He do forgive everything but the sin against the Holy Ghost. Of course, that's beyond His power, and would never do."
Mrs. Lintern spent much time at 'The White Thorn,' and since her visits relieved Eliza of work, she acquiesced in them, while reserving the right of private judgment. Priscilla and her children all saw the sufferer together more than once; and then came a day when Heathman, Cora, and Phyllis took their leave of him.
The young man then secreted his emotion and roamed for an hour alone upon the Moor; the girls felt it but little.
Cora declared afterwards to Phyllis that since this great confession had been made, her mind dimly remembered her tender youth and a man in it. This man she had regarded as her father.
All the children were deceived at an early age. They had, indeed, been led implicitly to suppose that their father died soon after the birth of Phyllis.
One last conversation with his brother, Humphrey long remembered. It was the final occasion on which Nathan seemed acutely conscious, and his uneasiness of mind clearly appeared.
They were alone, and the elder perceived that Nathan desired and yet feared to make some statement of a personal character. That he might ease the other's mind and open the way to any special conversation he desired, Mr. Baskerville uttered certain general speeches concerning their past, their parents, and the different characteristics of temperament that had belonged to Vivian and themselves.
"We were all as opposite as men can be, and looked at life opposite, and set ourselves to win opposite good from it. Who shall say which comes out best? On the whole, perhaps Vivian did. He died without a doubt. There are some men bound to be pretty happy through native stupidity and the lack of power to feel; and there are some men—mighty few—rise as high as happiness, and glimpse content by the riches of their native wisdom. I've found the real fools and the real wise men both seem to be happy. A small brain keeps a man cheerful as a bird, and a big one leads to what's higher than cheerfulness; but 'tis the middle bulk of us be so often miserable. We'm too witty to feed on the fool's pap of ignorance; and not witty enough to know the top of wisdom. I speak for myself in that; but you've been a happy, hopeful man all your days; so belike, after all, you're wiser than I granted you to be."
"Me wise! My God! Don't you say that. My happiness was a fool's happiness; my laughter a fool's laughter all the time. At least—not all the time; but at first. We do the mad things at the mad age, and after, when the bill comes in—to find us grown up and in our right minds—we curse Nature for not giving us the brains first and the powers afterwards. Man's days be a cruel knife in the hand of a child. Too often the heedless wretch cuts hisself afore he's learned how to handle it, and carries the scar for ever."
"True for you. Nature's a terrible poor master, as I've always said, and always shall. We know it; but who stands up between a young man and his youth to protect him therefrom? We old blids see 'em thinking the same vain things, and doing the same vain things, and burning their fingers and scorching their hearts at the same vain fires; and we look on and grin, like the idiots we are, and make no effort to help 'em. Not you, though—not you. You was always the young man's friend. You never was a young man yourself exactly. An old head on young shoulders you always carried; and so did I."
"Don't think it—not of me. 'Tisn't so. No man was madder than me; none was crueller; none committed worse sins for others' backs to bear. The best that any man will be able to say of me a month after I'm in my grave is that I meant well. And maybe not many will even say that. Death's no evil to me, Humphrey, but dying now is a very cruel evil, I assure you. The cloud lies behind, not in front."
"So it does with every man struck down in the midst of his work. Shall you write your own verse according to our old custom?"
The other shook his head.
"No. I'll stick up no pious thought for men to spit upon when they pass my grave. I'd rather that no stone marked it. 'Twill be remembered—in one heart—and that's more than ever I'll deserve."
"Don't be downcast. Leave afterwards to me. I think better of you for hearing you talk like this. You tried to brace me against the death of my son; now I'll brace you against your own death. You don't fear the thing, and that's to the good. But, like all busy men, it finds you with a lot of threads tangled, I suppose. That's the fate of every one who tries to do other people's work besides his own, and takes off the shoulders of others what properly belongs there. They'll have to look to their own affairs all round when you go."
Nathan's answer was a groan, and with the return of the nurse, Humphrey went away.
From that hour the final phases of the illness began; suffering dimmed the patient's mind, and turned his thoughts away from everything but his own physical struggle between the intervals of sleep. His torments increased; his consciousness, flinging over all else, was reduced to its last earthly interest. He kept his eyes and his attention ceaselessly fixed upon one thing so long as his mind continued under his control.
Not grief at the past; not concern at the future; not the face of Priscilla, and not the touch of her hand absorbed his intelligence now; but the sight of a small bottle that held the anodyne to his misery. That he steadfastly regarded, and pointed impatiently to the clock upon the mantelpiece when the blessed hour of administration struck.
The medicine was guarded jealously by Eliza Gollop, and once, when frenzied at the man's sufferings, Priscilla had sought to administer a dose, the other woman came between and sharply rebuked her.
"It's death!" she whispered under her voice. "D'you want to murder him? He's taking just what the doctor allows—the utmost limit."
After three days of unutterable grief, Nathan's brother became aware of the situation, and perceived that the end tarried. He debated on this long-drawn horror for a night, and next day spoke to the doctor.
He put the case without evasion or obscurity, and the professional man heard him in patience and explained at once his deep sympathy and his utter powerlessness to do more.
"He's dying—you grant that?"
"Certainly, he's dying—the quicker the better now, poor fellow. The glands are involved, and the end must come tolerably soon."
"How long?"
"Impossible to say. A few days probably. He keeps his strength wonderfully well."
"But it would be better if he didn't? Wouldn't it be better if he died to-night?"
"Much—for all our sakes," admitted the physician.
"Can't you help him out of it, then?"
"Impossible."
"Why? You'd do as much for a horse or dog."
"My business is to prolong life, not hasten death. The profession recognises no interference of that sort."
"Who knows anything about it? A dying man dies, and there's an end."
"I cannot listen to you, Mr. Baskerville. We must think of the greatest good and the greatest safety to the greatest number. The law is very definite in this matter, and I have my profession to consider. You look at an individual case; the law looks at the larger question of what is convenient for a State. Your brother is having medicinal doses of morphia as often as it is possible to give them to him without danger to life."
"In fact, Nature must kill him her own hard way."
"Much is being done to lessen his pain."
"But a double dose of your physic would——"
"End his life."
"How?"
"He would become unconscious and in three, or possibly four, hours he would die."
"You'd call that murder?"
"That is the only name for it as the law stands."
"You won't do that?"
"No, Mr. Baskerville. I wish I could help him. But, in a word, I have no power to do so."
"Is it because you think 'twould be a wrong thing, or because you know 'tis unlawful?" asked the elder. "You might say 'twas impertinent to ask it, as it touches religion; but I'm ignorant and old, and want to know how it looks to the conscience of a learned man like you—you, that have been educated in all manner of deep subjects and the secrets of life."
The doctor reflected. He was experienced and efficient; but like many other professional men, he had refused his reason any entrance into the arcanum of his religious opinions. These were of the customary nebulous character, based on tradition, on convention, on the necessity for pleasing all in a general practice, on the murmur of a mother's voice in his childhood.
"I am a Christian," he said. "And I think it wrong to lessen by one moment the appointed life of any man."
"But not wrong to lengthen it?"
"That we cannot do."
"Then surely you cannot shorten it, either? Tell me this, sir: why would you poison a dog that's dying, so that its misery may be ended?"
"I will not argue about it. The cases are not parallel. Common humanity would, of course, put a period to the agony of any unconscious beast."
"But wouldn't free an immortal soul from its perishing dirt?"
"No. I am diminishing his pain enormously. I can do no more. Remember, Mr. Baskerville, that our Lord and Master healed the sick and restored the dead to life. He never shortened any man's days; He prolonged them."
"I'm answered," replied the elder. "Your conscience is—where it should be: on the side of the law. I'm answered; but I'm not convinced."
They parted, and Humphrey found the other's argument not strong enough to satisfy him. He wrestled with the problem for some time and ere long his impression grew into a conviction, his conviction ripened to a resolve.
In the afternoon of that day he returned to 'The White Thorn' and found Mrs. Lintern with his brother.
Eliza had gone out for a while. Nathan appeared to be half unconscious, but his mind clearly pursued some private train of thought.
Priscilla rose from her chair beside the bed and shook hands with Humphrey. Nathan spoke, but not to them.
"A mighty man of valour. His burning words melted the wax in a man's ears, I warn you.... Melted the wax in a man's ears.... Melted the wax.... Oh, Christ, help me! Isn't it time for the medicine yet?"
He stared at the bottle. It was placed on a bracket in his sight.
"What did the doctor say to-day?" asked Humphrey.
"Said it was wonderful—the strength. There's nothing to stop him living three or four days yet."
"D'you want him to?"
"My God, no! I'd—I'd do all a woman could do to end it."
Humphrey regarded her searchingly.
"Will he come to his consciousness again?"
"I asked the doctor the same question. He said he might, but it was doubtful."
The sick man groaned. Agony had long stamped its impress on his face.
"When is he to have the medicine?"
"When Miss Gollop comes back," she said. "There's an hour yet. The Lord knows what an hour is to me, watching. What must it be to him?"
"Why, it may be a lifetime to him—a whole lifetime of torment yet before he's gone," admitted Humphrey.
"I pray to God day and night to take him. If I could only bear it for him!"
Mr. Baskerville knelt beside his brother, spoke loudly, squeezed the sufferer's hand and tried to rouse him.
"My physic, Eliza, for your humanity, Eliza—the clock's struck—I heard it—I swear—oh, my merciful Maker, why can't I have it?"
He writhed in slow suffocation.
"I'll give him his medicine," said Humphrey. "This shan't go on."
"She'll make trouble if you do."
"I hope not, and it's no great matter if she does."
He crossed the room, examined the bottle, took it to the light and poured out rather more than a double dose. He crossed the room with it, heaved a long breath, steadied himself and then put his arm round his brother and lifted him.
"Here you are, Nat. You'll sleep awhile after this. 'Twill soon ease you."
Nathan Baskerville seized the glass like one perishing of thirst, and drank eagerly.
He continued to talk a little afterwards, but was swiftly easier. Presently the drug silenced him and he lay still.
Humphrey looked at his watch.
"I can tell you," he said. "Because you'll understand. His troubles are ended for ever now. He won't have another pang. I've taken it upon myself. You're a wise and patient woman. You've got other secrets. Better keep this with the rest."
He was excited. His forehead grew wet and he mopped it with the sheet of the bed.
Priscilla did not reply; but she went on her knees beside Nathan and listened.
"At six o'clock, or maybe a bit earlier, he'll stop. Till then he'll sleep in peace. When does Eliza Gollop come back?"
"After four."
"I'll wait then."
"You're a brave man. 'Tisn't many would do so much as that, even for a brother."
"Do as you would be done by covers it. 'Tis a disgrace to the living that dying men should suffer worse terror and pain than dying beasts. Terror they must, perhaps, since they can think; but pain—no need for that."
"I'll bless you for this to my own last day," she said. She rose then and fetched a chair. She held Nathan's hand. He was insensible and breathing faintly but easily.
Suddenly Mrs. Lintern got up and hastened across the room to the medicine bottle.
"We must think of that," she said.
"Leave it. He's had enough."
"He's had too much," she answered. "There's the danger. When that woman comes back she'll know to half a drop what's gone. She guessed the wish in me to do this very thing two days ago. She read it in my eyes, I believe. And God knows the will was in my heart; but I hadn't the courage."
"Let her find out."
"No—not her. Some—perhaps many—wouldn't matter; but not her."
Priscilla took the bottle, lifted it and let it fall upon the floor. It broke, and the medicine was spilled.
"There," she said. "That will answer the purpose. You had given him his dose and, putting the bottle back, it broke. I'll send Heathman off quick to Yelverton for another bottle, so it shall be here before the next dose is due. Then you won't be suspected."
He listened, and perceived how easily came the devious thought to her swift mind. It did not astonish him that she was skilled in the art to deceive.
"I've taken the chances—all of them," he said. "I've thought long about this. I needn't have told you to keep the secret, for it can't be kept. And I don't want it to be kept really. You can't hide it from the nurse. She'll know by the peace of poor Nat here how it is."
Priscilla looked again. Profound calm brooded over the busy man of Shaugh Prior. He was sinking out of life without one tremor.
"There's an awful side to it," the woman murmured.
"There was," he said. "The awfulness was to see Nature strangling him by inches. There's nought awful now, but the awfulness of all death. 'Tis meant to be an awful thing to the living—not to the dying."
For half an hour they sat silent. Then Priscilla lifted the clothes and put her hand to Nathan's feet.
"He's cold," she said.
"Cold or heat are all one to him now."
A little later Eliza Gollop returned. She came at the exact hour for administration of the medicine, and she sought the bottle before she took off her bonnet and cloak.
"Where—why——?" she cried out.
"I gave him his physic a bit ago," said Mr. Baskerville. "The bottle is broke."
The nurse hurried to her patient and examined him closely. She perceived the change.
"He's dying!" she said.
"So he was when you went away."
She broke off and panted into anger.
"You've—you've—this is murder—I won't stop in the house. I—oh, you wicked woman!"
She turned upon Mrs. Lintern and poured out a torrent of invective.
Then Humphrey took her by the shoulders and put her out of the room.
"You can go," he said. "You'll not be wanted any more."
She hastened from the inn and then went off to the vicarage as fast as her legs would carry her.
Another half-hour passed and none came to them. From time to time Priscilla put her ear to Nathan's face.
"I don't think he's breathing any more," she said.
Then came a noise and a grumbling of men's voices below. A violent strife of words clashed in the bar. The day had waned and it was growing dark.
"They'll be against you, I'm fearing," said Priscilla.
"'Tis of no account. They always are."
Presently Dennis Masterman entered the room.
"I hear poor Baskerville is going and they can't find his minister. Can I be of any comfort to him?"
He made no allusion to the things that he had heard, and Humphrey did not immediately answer him. He was leaning over his brother. Then he took out his watch, opened it, and put the polished inner case to Nathan's lips.
"Light a candle and bring it here," he said to Priscilla.
She obeyed, and he examined the polished metal.
"No stain—he's dead, I suppose."
Then Mr. Baskerville turned to the clergyman.
"If you can pray, I'll be glad for you to do it."
Dennis immediately knelt down; the old man also went slowly on his knees and the weeping woman did the same.
"O Almighty God, Who has been pleased to take our brother from his sufferings and liberate an immortal soul from mortal clay, be Thou beside him now, that he may pass over the dark river with his hand in his Saviour's, and enter as a good and faithful servant into the joy of his Lord. And support the sorrows of those who—who cared for him on earth, and help them and all men to profit by the lesson of his charity and lovingkindness and ready ear for the trouble of his fellow-creatures. Let us walk in the way that he walked, and pass in peace at the end as he has passed. And this we beg for the sake of our Mediator and Comforter, our Blessed Lord and Redeemer, Thy Son, Jesus Christ."
"Amen," said Mr. Baskerville, "and thank you."
He rose, cast one glance at the grief-stricken woman by the bed, then looked upon his brother and then prepared to depart.
But he returned for a moment.
"Will you do the rest?" he asked of Mrs. Lintern. "Or shall I tell 'em to send?"
"No, I daren't. Tell him to send. I must go home," she answered.
A loud noise persisted in the bar, but he did not enter it. He took his hat and an old umbrella from the corner of the sick-room, then descended and went out into the night.
The doctor who attended Nathan Baskerville in his last illness heard from Eliza Gollop what had been done, and he took a serious view of it. From the standpoint of his opinions Humphrey Baskerville had struck a blow at society and the established order.
The physician was sober-minded and earnest. He communicated with the coroner of the district, stated the case impartially and left the official to act as seemed proper to him. But the coroner was also a medical man, and he reduced the problem to its simplest possible dimensions.
Death had been hastened by an uncertain measure of time for one who was enduring extreme agony. He judged the case on its own merits, after a rare judicial faculty peculiar to himself. He made no effort to consider its general bearing and tendency; he did not enlarge his survey to the principles involved. His sympathy was entirely on the side of Humphrey Baskerville; he applauded the old man in his heart and declared no inquest necessary. None was therefore held.
Those interested in Nathan's end took opposite views, and as for Humphrey himself, he was hidden for a time from the people and did not appear again in public until his brother's funeral. He failed, therefore, to learn the public opinion.
Jack Head and those who thought as he did, upheld the action; but not a few shared the faith of Thomas Gollop, openly expressed at the bar of 'The White Thorn' while still the dead master lay above.
For two days Nathan kept a sort of humble state, and the folk from far and near enjoyed the spectacle of his corpse. Many tramped ten miles to see him.
The humblest people appeared; the most unexpected persons acknowledged debts of unrecorded kindness. He lay in his coffin with a face placid and small behind the bush of his silver beard. Women wept at the sight and took a morbid joy in touching his folded hands.
Then he was hidden for ever and carried with difficulty down the narrow and winding stair of the inn.
Thomas Gollop dug the grave and Joe Voysey helped him. No younger men assisted them. They felt a sort of sentiment in the matter.
"'Tis the last pit I shall open, Joe," said Mr. Gollop; "and for my part, if I had my way, I shouldn't make it very deep. In these cases the law, though slow, is sure, and it may come about that he'll have to be digged up again inside a month to prove murder against that dark, awful man to Hawk House."
"'Tis the point of view. I don't look at it quite the same. For my part, in my business, I see a lot of death—not men but plants. And when a bush or what not be going home, I don't stand in the way. 'No good tinkering,' I often says to Miss Masterman, for the silly woman seems to think a gardener can stand between a plant and death. 'The herb be going home,' I says, 'and us can't stay the appointed time.' 'But I don't want it to go home—it mustn't go home,' she'll answer me—like a silly child talking. However, when her back be turned, I do my duty. The bonfire's the place. Jack Head looked over the kitchen-garden wall a bit agone and seed me firing up; and he said, 'Ah, Joe, your bonfire's like charity: it covers a multitude of sins!' A biting tongue that man hath!"
Joe chuckled at the recollection, but Gollop was not amused.
"A plant and a man are very different," he answered. "Scripture tells us that the fire is the place for the withered branch, but where there's a soul working out its salvation in fear and trembling, who be we worms to stand up and say 'go'?"
"It might be the Lord put it in Mr. Baskerville's heart," argued Voysey.
"The Lord ban't in the habit of putting murder in people's hearts, I believe."
"You didn't ought to use the word. He might have you up if he come to hear it."
"I wish he would; I only wish he would," declared Thomas. "Fearless you'd find me, with Eliza's evidence behind me, I can promise you. But not him: he knows too well for that."
They stood and rested where Nathan's grave began to yawn beside that of his brother. White marble shone out above Vivian, and not only his farewell verse, but also a palestric trophy representing the old wrestler's championship belt, was carved there.
"'Twill make history in more ways than one—this death will," foretold Thomas.
"What do you think? Parson's going to help with the funeral!"
"Why not?"
"'Why not?' You ask that! Nat was a Dissenter and his dissenting minister be going to bury him; but Masterman says, seeing how highly thought upon he was by all parties, that it becomes all parties to be at his grave. And he's going to be there; and if the bishop comed to learn of it, there'd be a flare-up that might shake England in my opinion."
"If his reverence says he'll be there, there he'll be."
"I don't doubt that. My belief is that all's well knowed at headquarters, and they're giving the man rope enough to hang hisself with. This may be the last straw."
Comforted by the reflection, Thomas resumed his labours.
"He'll lie cheek by jowl with his brother," he said. "Go easy in that corner, Joe; us'll be getting to the shoulder of Vivian's bricks afore long."
The circumstance of Nathan's passing had been received with very real grief by most of his relations. Even distant kindred mourned and not a few of the race, who were strangers to the Baskervilles of Shaugh Prior, appeared at the funeral. Mrs. Baskerville of Cadworthy felt helpless and faced almost with a second widowhood, for all her financial affairs had rested in Nathan's willing hand since her husband died. Her daughters also mourned in very genuine fashion. Their uncle had been kind, helpful, and generous to them. Only Mr. Bassett did not greatly suffer, for now he knew that his wife must inherit her own and hoped, indeed, for some addition under the will of the departed innkeeper.