CHAPTER XVIILeadville left the house with a hasty but heavy step. He had slept but little and his fall the previous evening had jarred and bruised him. Carrying his head even more forward than was his wont, he went along the shaly path which led, a little circuitously, up Dark Head. At another time he would have made the ascent without realizing he was not on level ground but, that morning, he stubbed his feet against the grey rock and stumbled over the cushions of sea-thrift. He was so tired, so stiff, that he, who had the sure-footedness of the mountain sheep, slipped on the smoother surfaces and came near to falling. When, at a turn in the path, a lew corner presented itself, an angle of rock about a few hardy plants, he uttered a grunt of satisfaction. Why should he go farther? Here was a refuge from the questioning of the women, a spot where he could rest. The cliff wall rose between him and the north and, when the southerly sun rose, its first beams would fall on that high but sheltered rock. He flung himself down and, as he lay on the tussocks of colourless grass, seemed in his weather-worn clothes as much a bit of natural waste as the oreweed drying on the rocks below.The day was mild, one of those we owe to what we are told is not the Gulf Stream but something which has a similar effect. In the growing light the sea shone dimly, a pale expanse of quiet water. On the man's harassed mind the peace of the scene had, as ever, a soothing effect. His glance roved over the treeless country, the rare farmsteads with each a group of grey outbuildings, the Cornish moors and the far range of rounded hills. What he saw was dear to him as it was familiar. Those well-known slopes, swelling softly till they reached Rowtor and Brown Willy, sinking to the abrupt black rocks that edged the sea! Byron seemed to himself a part of that on which he looked. Wastralls had made ham. He was, as he had said in his youth, a clod of Wastralls earth, dust which at the appointed time would fertilize the land to a fresh harvest. To be of it and, at the last, to go back to it, was what he had asked of life. He had been obsessed by one large and simple idea and, in his extreme weariness, he returned to it, looking across the land he loved, lifting his eyes to the good sun. He was outwearied and he longed for warmth and comfort. The shelter of his corner promised forgetfulness. The land lay green about him, the sea sang its thunderous lullaby and sleep was in the soft touch of the air, the thin warmth of the December sun. Pillowing his shaggy head upon his arm, the man drifted from the manifold irritations, the aches and pains of life, into that state which doth so mysteriously resemble death.For at least two hours, Leadville, warmed through by sunbeams and the sea-scented air, lay deeply asleep. When he stirred the red was in his cheek and his eyes were clear. He looked about him and remembered. He had killed Sabina and now must bear himself so that none should know or even suspect. It would, he thought, be easy enough. She had been a good wife to him and, as she was actually dead, he might show, without tempting Providence, a natural grief. His walk as he went down the hill was brisk and purposeful. To the dead their hour, a sob and a black coat; when they were underground it would be the turn of the living. From the future opening before him, Leadville turned his eyes. Sabina should have her due!Before Rhoda, full of the importance of her message, reached Cottages, its inhabitants were agog. A little bird had carried the news of Mrs. Byron's death and those whom it least concerned were discussing it. Mrs. Bate, who lived in the end cottage of the hamlet, a tiny two-roomed place, had for many years been Stripper, or, as some call the woman who prepares the dead for their last journey, 'Nurse' to the community. As soon as a death occurred, she was sent for and her duty it was not only to strip the clothes from the corpse and array it in fine linen, but to receive the many visitors and conduct them, in turn, to the death-chamber. On the day of the funeral her position was one of some importance. She was the undertaker's right hand. Indeed, the responsibility for the smooth working of the arrangements rested on her rather than on him.When the news reached Mrs. Bate, therefore, that Mrs. Byron of Wastralls had died during the night, she knew that she would be wanted. Though the possessor of a handsome jolly face she was given to timid fears and, after raking out her fire, she went across to Mrs. Blewett, the seamstress, better known as 'Aunt Louisa,' to have one of these resolved."Mrs. Rosevear sure to be there," she said anxiously, "and she could set Mrs. Byron forth if her liked; but she wouldn't do anybody out of a job, would she?"'Aunt Louisa,' slim and, in spite of the wear and tear of life still graceful, was fitting the cover to her machine. "She bin poor 'erself," she said encouragingly. The two old bodies had lived in the same parish for seventy years, and as next-door neighbours, for thirty. She knew that Fanny Bate, in spite of her large well-covered frame and square face, found it difficult to stand alone."I wouldn't miss doing this," said Mrs. Bate, her old blue eyes still anxious, "for all the golden sovereigns in Trevorrick. When Judgment Day come, there won't be many from 'ere but what will look up and thank me for settin' 'em forth.""If you set 'em forth," said Aunt Louisa, remembering the many shrouds her fingers had fashioned, "I've made the things for 'm.""Iss, but I've nursed and tended them as well as set them forth," she would not admit the other's claim to a share in the work of preparing the neighbourhood for burial. "And I think of their souls, too, poor things. 'Tis better to look after their souls than their bodies. 'Tis an awful thing to die not being prepared to meet God. I sing hymns till they'm happy and not afraid to die. I 'ope 'tis all right with poor Mrs. Byron's soul," she paused, a little troubled by Sabina's eminent unpreparedness, "but she was always a good-livin' woman and God is merciful to the last."Aunt Louisa turned her quiet grey eyes on the other woman and in them was a suggestion from, which Mrs. Bate shrank in pretended ignorance. "Must 'av died pretty and suddent!" said the seamstress."Well, I think she has been ailing for some time, she 'aven't been vitty since her accident!" Louisa was so 'forth-y,' but it didn't pay to say all you thought. She, herself, daring enough before the event, knew that 'a still tongue make a wise 'ead.'"Mrs. Bate!" cried a voice from the road, where old Hawken, rather staggery about the feet, was making shift to carry an armful of fodder to his donkey. "Rhoda's comin' up the lane. I believe she want you.""Thank you, Mr. 'Awken," said the old woman modestly, "but there's more'n me'll be wanted at Wastralls.""You're the Stripper, bain't you? and you'll be wanted first. Iss, first and last."The child, a sensible as well as pretty little girl of ten, came quickly from the direction of the sea. She was shocked to think that kind Auntie S'bina was dead. She was also impressed with the importance of her errand. Seeing Mrs. Bate at Aunt Louisa's door, she ran to her across the little green. "Mammy says, please will you come down to Wastralls at once and will Aunt Louisa come too and bring her machine.""I'll be prettily glad to do anything for Mrs. Byron and your mammy," responded the latter, a little anxiously, "but I can't carr' the machine, my dear."Old Hawken who had lingered, curious to hear what passed, seized the opportunity. "If you will wait a minute," he volunteered, "I'll put the ole dunkey in and drave 'ee down.""Well, 'tis braäve and kind of 'ee, Mr. 'Awken.""Time like this, everybody must do all they can to 'elp," and, as Mrs. Bate saw her neighbour drive off in the donkey-cart, she regretted that laying out the dead did not necessitate the transport of large and heavy parcels; but it was like Louisa, so it was, she got the best of everything and always had since she was born wrong side of the blanket and everybody allowed it was the right!Meanwhile Mrs. Tom, her heart heavier than it had been for many a year, had set Sabina's room in order and removed the evidences of humble use. She took up the cocoa-jug, looked into it, then carried it away and put it on the upper shelf in the linhay. With the certainty of knowledge, she went to the bottom drawer of the tall-boy for the clothes in which Mrs. Bate was to 'set her forth'—'no need to stream up anything, S'bina 'ad 'er clothes ready, stockings, night-cap and all!' As Mrs. Tom hung them over the back of a chair, a belated tear ran down her cheek and she glanced from their smooth white folds to the still figure on the bed. A lifetime of friendship! She caught her breath in a sob but, because she had so much to do, tried to check her grief. Yet when, a little later, Tom brought the black dress for which she had asked, he found her sitting on the floor, her head against the chair and her tears falling unheeded on the hem of her friend's shroud."Why, mother, dear!" he cried with a quick rush of tenderness. "I shouldn't take on like that. You know we've all got to die sometime."She put out her arms to him like a forlorn and sorrowful child. "I can't 'elp feeling of it. You know we was schoolgirls together.""Well, well, my dear, she's gone. I'm pretty and sorry but still she's better off. We 'av got each other still and we need to be thankful for't."Mrs. Tom clung to him. "I knaw. I've got a lot to be thankful for. I've got you and the childern, but to-day I can't 'elp thinkin' about 'er. What 'appy times we've 'ad together.""I knaw, my dear." He held her close, closer than was his wont in prosperous times and, with her head on that middle-aged shoulder, Mrs. Tom wept till the rush of grief was spent.When the women whom she had summoned made their appearance, however, though red-eyed, she had herself in hand. She and Mrs. Con Rosevear being the nearest relatives, the family, only too well aware of the latter's slatternly ways, would look to Mrs. Tom for direction. And she was ready for them. Experience had instructed her in the routine to be followed and, before long, Mrs. Bate with a bowl of hot water, with flannel, soap and scissors, had shut herself into the justice-room: Mrs. Con with the bustling help of a sister-in-law, Mrs. William Brenton of Cumean, was turning out the big parlour; and Aunt Louisa, like an embodied shadow, was slipping from room to room in search of mourning apparel. Mrs. Byron had stores of black material, in the piece and made up, and to the old woman was deputed the congenial work of looking for it. Her sewing machine had been given pride of place on the side-table in the kitchen and, already, the other was growing dark with the first results of her search, with crape, black ribbon, cottons, buttons, etc., a heterogeneous assortment. When Leadville returned from Dark Head, the work of preparation was so far forward, that the women, calling a halt, had gathered for a mid-morning cup of tea.When life has passed the adventurous stage—if it ever does—it turns to the doings of others for its spice; and, in that homely room, about which were scattered so many black garments that the place looked as if draped for some funereal occasion, the five women discussed the dead."'Tis very good of 'ee, Aunt Louisa, to come at once to 'elp wi' the blacks, when I knaw you be always slagged wi' work," said Mrs. Tom, with the usual sweet civility of the Cornishwoman."Well, my dear," returned Mrs. Blewett, "at a time like this anybody 'ud do anything. I'd go on me 'ands and knees for Mrs. Byron. I've knawed 'er ever since she was a child and 'ave always done 'er sewin' for 'er. Why, some time back, I made the clothes to set 'er forth with! But I thought she was worth a hundred dead ones. Never thought, as I should live to make up 'er mournin's.""She's lookin' so natural now," said Mrs. Bate, who had brought from the death-chamber the night-cap which had been put in readiness. The lacy frills of it were limp with the sea-damp and Mrs. Tom had offered to iron and goffer it. She was glad to do for her friend this last of many kindnesses."Aw, poor soul, she's at rest now. Gone out of a world of trouble. She's best off where she's to," said Aunt Louisa, in tones of conventional grief."I wonder," began Mrs. William Brenton, who being in Trevorrick on a week-end visit to her sister-in-law, had accompanied her and was delighted to find herself in the midst of such interesting occurrences. Living at Polscore, and that only since her marriage, for she was a woman from up-country, she was not deeply versed in local gossip. She endeavoured to remedy this by asking questions but, as she was not noted for discretion, her gleanings were apt to be scanty. "I wonder if she've left any will?"Neither Mrs. Tom nor Mrs. Constantine looked up. The latter felt that after Leadville's death the farm should come to one of her tall sons, to Freathy, Ern or Tremain; while Mrs. Tom was sure that her girls, being Mrs. Byron's favourites, had the prior claim."You ought to know if anybody do," said Aunt Louisa, snipping the thread of a finished hem and turning her grey eyes on Mrs. Tom. The neat precise old woman gave a general impression, in colourless face, smooth scanty braids and capable hands, of greyness. She was like water overhung by trees, a limpid stillness in which shadows moved."Well," said Mrs. Tom carefully, "I don't know. S'bina was very close wi' money matters. She never let on to any one what she intend doin'."Aunt Louisa's clear eyes moved thoughtfully from face to face. With the exception of Mrs. Tom she was far and away the cleverest woman in Trevorrick and she applied her wits—as do all of us, from scholar to ale-house gossip—to gathering stores of useless information. "Never 'eard tell of any will," she said, beginning to tack the seams of a skirt for little Rhoda, "and I never knawed of any lawyer comin' 'ere to do anything about a will.""What you don't knaw, my dear," said. Mrs. Bate, tactless but admiring, "is good for sore eyes;" and in this statement she voiced so conclusively the opinions of all present that the hopes of both Mrs. Con and Mrs. Tom sank. If there were no will Leadville would inherit and there was no reason he should leave it to a Rosevear. In all probability he would marry again and rear a family. Mrs. Tom thought fleetingly of his infatuation for Gray and what might have been."Goodness!" said Mrs. Brenton cheerfully. "There'll be pretty ole capers if everything's left to Mr. Byron. 'E'll be turnin' the place upside down. 'E'll be tellin' us all 'ow to farm. Continuous croppin' 'e call it, but my maister say 'better leave things as they be and not make work when there's no need for it.' 'E don't believe in these new-fangled ways.""I think," said Mrs. Con uneasily, "'e'll teel all those new things 'e's craikin' about and I wonder what Old Squire would say if 'is 'ead was above the earth.""Some do say 'is 'ead's up now." Mrs. Tom's smile was faint, a twitch of the lips, a recognition of Mrs. Con's tremulous outlook. "I think if Leadville was to start 'is sugar-beet and terbacker teelin' 'e 'ud 'av a 'ot time wi' Old Squire!""Mrs. Byron," began Aunt Louisa and stopped to re-thread her needle. She spoke as if her mouth were full of pins. Use had made her able to speak through a bristlingchevaux de frisewhile age made her forget whether the pins were there or not. "Mrs. Byron is the livin' image of Old Squire as I remember'n." She glanced at his elbow-chair, wide and built with a cunning hand. Pushed against the wall, its red cushions were hidden under billows of black material, but this drapery only made its outlines the more regal. None of those who looked but thought of the man for whom it had been made as still dimly occupying it. More than one had a glimpse of silver hair above a masterful face and caught the faint sound of an imperious voice. "I seed'n when 'e was in 'is coffin," continued Louisa, recalling further a mountainous bulk. "I warn't higher than the table when 'e died but I can remember mother takin' me in.""'E was a great big man, wasn't 'e?" asked Mrs. Brenton."A lickin' great feller!" Aunt Louisa basted as she talked and the other women, most of them younger by a generation, listened with interest. With the exception of Mrs. Brenton they knew why the old woman's mother had been anxious to imprint the features of Freathy Rosevear on her child's plastic memory. "When he was dead," continued Aunt Louisa, who in her neatness, her precision, was as unlike her sire as any child might be, "they couldn't get his coffin overstairs. They had to take it up in pieces and put'n together in's bedroom. And then they couldn't get'n out. They 'ad to take out the big winder in the end of the 'ouse and slide'n down over the boords. I can remember as if 'twere yesterday. 'E was so 'eavy they had the bier out from Stowe to carr'n; for 'twas more'n the bearers could manage.""And S'bina was like 'im," said Mrs. Con curiously. She had heard the tale of Old Squire's funeral before but that his granddaughter resembled him so closely was new to her."The spit of 'n. 'E was a great big red-faced feller with flamin' 'air which was always stickin' up on end and 'is voice, it was like it was going to wake the dead.""I wonder at your mother takin' you to see 'im, an old dead man. It don't 'ardly seem the thing, do it?" said Mrs. Brenton looking round at the others but finding them, to her surprise, dull and unresponsive."She wanted for me to remember what 'e was like," said the old woman placidly and Mrs. Bate, who had received the night-cap from Mrs. Tom and was absent-mindedly smoothing the strings, smiled to herself a little wistfully. She was old now, but she had been a handsome maid. If only she had been alive when Old Squire was in his prime!"I shouldn't think," said Mrs. Con, putting down her empty cup and leaning both elbows comfortably on the table, "that S'bina's coffin would cost so much, now, without laigs? Twill be all that the shorter and 'twont be so 'cavy for the men to carry. I should think one set of bearers 'd do.""Surely," urged Mrs. Brenton, "they'll make it the right size? Twill look funny to 'av a dumpy coffin.""'Ere, Betsy, you can tack this seam," said Mrs. Tom, who, seeing no reason for any one to be idle, was apportioning the sewing. This done she spoke with authority. "They must make S'bina's coffin the right length; for when 'er laigs was cut off she wouldn't 'av them throwed away. 'When I'm buried up,' she say, 'I'll 'av me laigs with me. Anybody can't rise up on the Last Day without laigs!'"The others showed surprise. "Very thoughtful of 'er, I'm sure," said Mrs. Brenton."No," said Aunt Louisa in her pin-muted voice, "'twouldn't be decent to go before 'er Maker wi'out laigs. But I didn't know she 'ad 'em. Wherever's she kept 'em to?""Well, she got 'em in a box, salted away. She brought 'em 'ome from the 'orspital and they'm in the li'l parlour in the cupboard. I think we'd better get'n out against Mr. 'Enwood come to measure 'er.""She'll make a vitty corpse, after all," said Mrs. Con, who had been haunted by the thought of that legless body and who would now be able to think of her cousin as made whole by the restoration of the carefully preserved limbs. Her person, large and soft, the person of a big eater and small doer, heaved in a gusty sigh of satisfaction. "Nights I've lied thinkin' when she die there'd 'av to be something put in the coffin to keep 'er from boompin' up and down."Mrs. Bate got up. "I'll just put on 'er cap and then you can all come in and see 'er. She's the fines' body I've set forth for many a day. Some fat body, too, she be, some 'andsome body, fat as butter."Before the others could take advantage of this invitation which, with the exception of Mrs. Con they were naturally eager to do, Leadville's step was heard on the linhay flags and he at once became the centre of interest. The corpse could wait but this was their first glimpse of the bereaved. Curiosity was veiled by industry and politeness and like the fates they snipped and stitched.Fresh from his sleep in the sunshine and ready to do his part, he paused, on his way in, to break his fast. As he ate, the whirr of the sewing-machine caught his ear and at once some of his briskness passed."Well, Mrs. Tom, I'm come back," he cried, pulling open the little door. To him, the room, always dark, seemed full of soberly clad women and, between them, he made out masses of black material which, overflowing chairs and tables, lay in discreet heaps on the clean blue floor. The women glanced up with conventional murmurs and he perceived that, for the nonce, it was they who were at home there and not he. "What is there for me to do?"Isolda put down the child's frock on which she was at work. "I think you better go into Stowe and see Mr. Henwood and tell'n to come out and measure 'er for 'er coffin."Leadville viewed the task set him with disfavour. "I can't abide that job.""It bain't a bit of good for 'ee to talk like that, my dear," said Mrs. Tom, as to a fractious child, "you know it's got to be done. As well 'av it done first as last.""I know that." Traffic in the gruesome ceremonial of death was repugnant to him and he would have liked to take a broom and sweep these women and their blacks out of Wastralls, to clear the place of them and have it once more sweet and clean. "Still 'tis 'ard lines on a poor feller.""Of course it be but, there, it can't be 'elped. I don't want to bother you more'n I can 'elp; but still there's things as must be seen to."He stood before her, balancing first on one foot, then on the other."Well?" he said."There's the funeral and what about the food?""Tedn't a bit of good for 'ee to ask me. You must do zactly as you like. You knaw best, better than I do.""I thought," she pursued, bent on getting his assent to the arrangements she considered should be made, "about 'avin' a 'am and a couple of chicken and a piece of beef and then I thought we'd better 'ave a couple of tarts and white cake and yeller cake: and tea. That will be enough.""Iss," he said, longing to get away, "well, you know what to do.""And you'll 'av to go and see doctor to get a certificate before you go down to Mr. 'Enwood. As 'e was 'ere yesterday, 'e may not want an inquest—still you never know.""Well, I'll see'n.""What day be yer thinkin' to 'av the funeral?"Leadville was anxious to have it as soon as possible, but knew that this desire was not one to which he could give utterance. "I can't abear to think of 't," he said, conscious of his audience. "I feel as if I'm waitin' for 'er to come in. 'Tidn't like she's dead, to me."The women glanced at him kindly. They were sorry for him, a poor forlorn creature, a widow man. "I'm afraid," said Mrs. Tom, regretfully, "we shall 'av to bury 'er up pretty quick. Mrs. Bate think she oughtn't to be kep' longer'n Monday.""Monday?" cried the man and, for a moment, lifted his heavy lids and stared at her. "You don't mean it? Why it's now Saturday?""Well, my dear, she died on a full stomach and you know you can't keep her very long. Still I should be the last to 'urry 'er into 'er grave. We'll see what Mr. 'Enwood say."Mrs. Con, glad of a moment's respite from the sewing, had been watching the speakers. "What 'av 'ee got on yer face there?" she asked peering, with short-sighted eyes, at a brown smear on the man's forehead, the smear his seal-blooded hand had made the previous evening when wiping away the drops of his fear."'E 'aven't washed yet," interposed Mrs. Tom and turned back to Byron. "I've put yer black clothes upstairs on yer bed and there's plenty of 'ot water you can 'av.""Look like you've got blood there," persisted Mrs. Con, "'av you cut yerself?"Byron swung over to the little mirror by the range. Across his forehead lay a broad smear, dark brown in hue. Though he recognized it instantly as blood, his forgetfulness of the unimportant past prevented his being able to account for it and superstitious dread swooped on him out of a clear sky."I dunno what that is," he stammered, already shaken out of his reasonableness and with a vague recollection of a similar episode on the previous evening. "It do look like blood! 'Owever did it get there?""Don't 'ee worry, Leadville," soothed Mrs. Tom and who knows whether her words were accidental or chosen. "There's no mark o' Cain on 'ee, Lorrd be praised.""Mark o' Cain!" he muttered and Mrs. Tom saw leap into his eyes a questioning terror."I expect you've scratched yourself somewhere," she said easily. "Take'n go and wash it off." Pouring hot water into a dipper she offered it to him and Leadville, treading delicately among the heaps of black material, went out. He had brought from Dark Head a clear simplicity of purpose, but now his mind was like a ruffled pool. "Mark o' Cain?" he muttered to himself as he went upstairs. "What do they knaw about it? It's all tommy-rot, they can't knaw anything, 'tis only what they'm surmisin'. Can't trust they women, their tongues is always waggin'. They'll ferret out the last rat that's in the mow."As he put his hands into the dipper he noticed they were trembling and, with this, his caution began to reassert itself. The women must not be allowed to suspect that there was anything concealed. "If I don't take care," he admonished himself, "I shall find meself in a box. Pretty feller me, to take so much notice o' they. I've done more'n they'll ever bear to think on and 'ere I'm all twitchy because of their silly talk."After washing his face he examined it in the toilet-glass for any sign of a hurt, but the skin was unbroken."I 'aven't cut meself," he said perplexedly, and suddenly the episode of the seal occurred to him. He laughed aloud. "Mark o' Cain indeed! And me, what don't believe in they old ideas! Iss, they'm too fanciful for our day o' livin'." He shook his heavy shoulders. "I mus' pull meself together. I must remember, only thing that's 'appened is that I've lost the missus—poor sawl."In the room below the women had returned to their work of 'makin' up the mournin's.'"'E seem rather cut up about it, not like 'e belong to be," commented Aunt Louisa."Well, what can 'ee expect," said Mrs. Brenton, "only lostin' 'is wife this mornin'? Can't expect for'm to be bright and cheerful!""I don't expect anything," said the old woman, "still you can't 'elp noticin' things."CHAPTER XVIIIAs Leadville on his black stallion turned the corner below Church Town, he met the Wastralls wagon coming back from Stowe with a load of coal and oil. The sight of the teamster, leading his horse as it zigzagged across the sharp ascent, brought the other a sudden tingling realization of power. Yesterday Rosevear had been a hind on his wife's farm and Byron, though ostensibly, blusteringly master, had not been able to dismiss him. Now, opportunity, spruce and debonair, was walking towards him up the wide curve of the road.Reining in his horse—a gift from Sabina, who liked him to be well mounted—he waited till Jim, this 'proper jump-the-country' was abreast of him."The missus is gone!" He was not thinking of Sabina but of the alteration in their relative position.Jim's face had been as cheerful as his thoughts. Though in workaday clothes he wore them with a holiday air and had adorned his cap with the iridescent wing-feather of a drake. He was in pairing mood and had seen in Stowe 'a lickin' great wardrobe' that he would like for Gray 'if she'd a mind to't.' His nest-building thoughts were scattered by Byron's untimely news and his face lengthened. "Gone?" he repeated. "'E don't say so? Poor sawl! I'm awful sorry. Was it a fit or what was it?"Byron, impatient to assert himself, ignored the question. Sitting his horse with a touch of swagger he said truculently: "I'll leave yer know I'm maister now."Jim believed that he had a reason to dislike the speaker and none whatever to avoid a quarrel. Better bad blood between them than that Byron, under the cloak of kinship, should be able to come worrying Gray."Iss," he said, accepting the challenge, "missus is 'ardly cold, but still I s'pose you think you'm maister now."In Byron's fierce eyes was the longing to begin the inevitable fight. The youth, blithe and with his handsome face upturned, was incarnate provocation. One hearty blow and Byron saw the contour of that admirable nose for ever changed."When you finish up to-night you can come in," he growled, "and I'll pay you your wages. I don't want you 'ere, on the place, any longer."Jim did not seem impressed. "I can clear now if you like." It would serve the 'ole hunks' right if he were left with the horse and wagon on his hands."An' if yer don't want to 'av yer bones broken," continued the other, pausing on a darkling thought that the sea did not always give up its dead, "you'll clear out of this part altogether."In Jim's eyes was a little dancing light. "Shen't clear out for the likes of you.""Well, now, you take this for a warning. If you don't you'll wish you 'ad.""We'll see about that," and being of those whose spirits rise at the prospect of a fight he smiled. "We'll see who is the best man of the two, me or you."A grimmer smile was on Byron's face. Knowing his strength he could look forward, past the irritating unpropitious moment, to the happy hour when they should come to grips. "Oo d'yer think's afraid of you, yer banty cock?" he cried, contemptuously, and prepared to ride on."If you was as big as a church and tower I ain't afraid," cried the youth after him. As the affair seemed to be hanging fire, he tried a rousing word. "An' if I'm in yer way I shall stay where I'm to."Byron flashed him a look full of sinister possibilities, the look of one who had taken into consideration that cliffs are sheer and nights dark. "I'll see about that, then."The prospect of a fight was dwindling into nothingness. "There's people," said Jim, on a last hope, "'ud rather see me than you.""Any more of your cheek, young sprat, and I'll wring your neck."But he had realized the countryside would cry shame if he were seen brawling in public while his wife lay dead at home. They would not be blinded to the reason and such knowledge might breed suspicion. He must wait. Grinding his heel into the stallion's side he started at a gallop, leaving Jim disappointed but smiling, for with him, too, it was a case of 'Gay go the Gordons.'A little annoyance was enough to upset Byron for hours. In a fume of exasperation and bitter feeling he now urged his horse to a speed which drew on him the attention of other wayfarers."If 'e ride that rate 'e must be goin' after a doctor. I should think man's missis was goin' to straw—first child, too," said a man from Little Petherick to whom Leadville was a stranger."Thiccy feller's Mr. Byron to Wastralls," corrected his companion, "and I know there's no chick nor child there, nor any comin'. 'E do always ride as if Old Nick was after 'un. 'E'll break 'is neck one of these odd days."The short interview with Rosevear had been unsatisfactory in more ways than one, for the youth's last words had planted a thorn. Not only had he smiled at Byron's threats but his smile, had been of a quality which made the other's blood run cold. Behind it lay assurance, a knowledge he might not divulge but which, like a hidden weapon, was for use at need. The other's jealousy, temporarily in abeyance, stirred and he sought a reason, other than the simple love of fighting inherent in the male, for Jim's smile. Not many cared to try conclusions with the strongest man in the parish. Byron had browbeaten the few who crossed his path, but Jim was game. What had happened to give him confidence? How were matters between him and Gray? That drive into Stowe! The farmer ground his teeth at the thought of it. Was she promised and did Rosevear feel sure of her? A fool for his pains! Such promises were of cobweb stuff. She might promise—his little umuntz—for she did not know, but the end would be the same.The black stallion was damp with sweat when Byron pulled up at Dr. Derek's freshly painted gate—which in its brightness, its specklessness, was the outward and visible sign of the doctor's tastes! A pathway, gravelled with small white stones and edged with scarlet tiles, led directly to a cream-coloured house, the wide windows of which were brilliantly clean but uncurtained. On the door a highly polished knocker twinkled above a discreetly closed brass letter-flap. Dr. Derek was just returned from his morning round and, though the midday meal was on the table, his constant curiosity with regard to Mrs. Byron, would not allow him to keep her husband waiting. The farmer was, therefore, shown at once into the consulting-room.The little doctor, round and rosy, was seated before a table of light polished wood. Byron, as he went up the room, gathered an impression of bright glass and metal surfaces, in a well-lighted sunshiny place. So bright was everything, the glass cupboards full of silver implements, the polished woods, the glazed bookcases, that the man, used to low tones within doors, blinked. The high lights of innumerable small objects, the sharply defined pattern of carpet and upholstered chair, confused him and for a moment he stood tongue-tied. At last the difficult words came."I've bad news for 'ee, sir."If that well-regulated organ, which Dr. Derek called his heart, ever varied in its beat this was one of the occasions. He had been convinced that with such injuries as had been inflicted by her accident Mrs. Byron could not recover and, by doing so, she had proved him mistaken. Was it possible that after all..."Sorry to hear it, Byron. The missus isn't worse, I hope?"The man breathed heavily. "I'm sorry to tell 'ee, sir, she's gone."Dr. Derek sat back in his cane elbow-chair. It was a sign, with him, of elation but his face was decorously long. "Dear, dear, you don't say so? How did it happen?"Byron twisted his hat in his hands. In the meticulously clean room he showed clumsy, weather-browned and out of place. "She wasn't like herself all day, yesterday," he volunteered after a pause, during which Dr. Derek, waiting and knowing he must wait, had occupied himself with a retrospect. No woman could survive such injuries. If it had been one leg or if the head had not been hurt! Her partial recovery had been the effort of a healthy organism, a fine effort but foredoomed. The event had justified his prognosis. "She went to bed early," continued Byron, dragging out his words as if they were creatures with a will opposed to his, "she thought if she did she might be better by the mornin'.""Did she take her food?""She was eatin' like a 'adger last night. I couldn't 'elp noticing it. I thought 'twas a poor sign.""What did she have for supper?"Byron recalled, not the articles of food but, the look of the table. "Well, I believe as she 'ad a piece of cold pork.""Ah!" said the doctor and, behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of the investigator who has run a fact to earth. "And I said she was to be careful about her food. If you remember I recommended a light diet?"Byron, without understanding it, had noted the satisfaction. "Iss, doctor, but 'er mind was runnin' on pork." He did not know what a light diet was nor that fat pork, when indulged in freely and late at night, was unwholesome."A hearty meal," mused the doctor, "and a heart suffering from overstrain. Well—what happened?""Since 'er accident, she've been sleepin' downstairs and I never 'eard nothin' of 'er till Mrs. Rosevear come over early this mornin' and found 'er dead in bed." He shook his head. "It frightened all the lot of us."The doctor, turning to a brass dish, picked up an agate penholder. "Very sad, Byron, very sad; but I'm afraid only what was to be expected."It was the countryman's turn to experience surprise. The doctor had taken Sabina's death as a matter of course. Very satisfactory, but on what grounds? "You don't say so, sir," he began cautiously. "I'd no idea!""If people in a weak state of health will eat pork late at night, in other words give their stomach more work than it is capable of doing," explained Dr. Derek and, behind his twinkling spectacles, his cold and keen eyes emitted a friendly gleam, "the heart is apt to stop work. It's not a bad death, Byron. She didn't suffer.""I'm pretty and thankful to hear that, sir. We was rather afraid, poor sawl, there by 'erself, might 'av 'ad a 'ard death.""You can put that fear out of your mind. In all probability she passed in her sleep, just—" he snapped his fingers—"snuffed out. Now, let's see, do you want me to come over?"So far, matters had gone better than Byron had dared to hope; but now his heart sank. If Dr. Derek were to see Sabina he might realize—Byron accredited him with miraculous powers—on what a fairy superstructure his diagnosis was built. "Well, sir," he said, "just as you like. If you think you ought to come, do so. I shouldn't like for people to talk after she were buried up and say we didn't do what we ought to 'ave done; but she's dead and stiff.""You don't make a point of it, then?""I want you to zactly please yerself, sir.""Humph!" The doctor considered. "I saw her yesterday and I'm pretty busy. Yes, yes, it isn't necessary." His gold nib in its cool agate holder began to run in smooth flowing style over a sheet of partly printed paper. "Show that to the undertaker," he said, passing the certificate to Byron."Thank you, doctor, and for all the trouble you've took of 'er." He placed the paper carefully in his pocketbook and prepared to go. "Seems rather hard that after all you couldn't pull 'er through!"In Dr. Derek's bosom the professional man was often at war with the scientific. "The fact is, Byron," he said honestly, "I didn't expect to save her. I've never thought she would live so long." His experienced glance dwelt fleetingly on the other's face. "You look pretty seedy, yourself. If you don't take care we shall have you on the sick list.""Well, sir, 'twas awful sudden, 'twas. I don't feel to believe she's really gone. I'm like I'm in a dream." But, in his hidden mind, he was wondering why the man who saw so much could not pierce to the little more."Must have been a terrible shock to you. When is the funeral to be?""Monday, I believe, sir.""Walking, I suppose?"The man looked surprised. "What else would we 'av, sir?""No, of course, I was forgetting. Well, I'll try to come to it. I had the greatest possible respect for your wife as a farmer. She should have been a man.""'Tis great respect you're payin' her, sir."The doctor smiled enigmatically. "That's as may be," he said and, indeed, for him to say a woman resembled a man was the reverse of complimentary. In his experience the sterile female frequently approximated to the male in type and habits; and he thought such approximation a sign of degeneracy. He had been interested from a scientific point of view in Mrs. Byron. She had led a man's life and she was childless. Was the latter a consequence, or had the childlessness determined her way of life? He could find arguments in support of both theories.Byron had brought to the interview a mind filled with misgiving. Dr. Derek had a reputation for ability and the other had hardly ventured to hope his tale would pass muster. He had told the truth because he dared not do other and behold it had stood him in good stead, that and the fact that Dr. Derek, for the sake of his professional reputation, had not been altogether sorry to hear of Mrs. Byron's death. As he rode at a walking pace down the hilly street the farmer could congratulate himself on the outcome.The streets of Stowe, like spokes of a wheel, converge on the quay; and back from it, but near at hand, lie the huddle of warehouses, shops and inns, which supply the needs of sailormen. The quayside itself is, at low tide, a sheer drop of many feet; but the children play on its unprotected verge and the drunken man rolls gaily home from the waterside pubs and there is no tale of casualties. In one of the less frequented streets, opposite the Farmer's Arms, stood the undertaker's shop with, in the window, by way of advertisement, a baby's coffin and a hollow mortuary urn. Henwood, the undertaker, a little chattery man, fond of society and overfond of his glass, was generally to be found on his neighbour's premises; and, when Byron rode up, was fetched therefrom by the wife whose tongue was supposed to drive him thither. As Dr. Derek would have said, however, it was a moot point whether Mrs. Henwood's temper was the cause of his going, or his going the cause of her temper.He came in, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and, the subject of beer being to him the most congenial in the world, opened the proceedings by asking Byron if he would have a glass. The latter, preoccupied and anxious, had not known he was thirsty."I don't mind if I do 'av one," he said, with that increase of cordiality which an offer of hospitality induces."Wait a moment, then." Little Henwood, who was a man of girth rather than height, rolled himself down the shop. When he reached the door at the end, he opened the upper half and called to some one within. "Sandra! would you mind running in for a jug of beer?"A clatter of tin pans reached Byron's ears, then a voice the reverse of amiable. "Do you think I'm going to run my foot in and out for you—yer walkin' beer-barr'l? Fetch it yerself.""'Tidn't fer me, my dear," twittered the little man."Mr. Byron don't want beer when he's come for yer to make a coffin. 'Tis for yerself I reckon and quench yer thirst in this world you can but Lorrd knows yer throat will be dry enough in the next.""Well, 'av it your own way then, my dear, but Mr. Byron's thirsty as a gull. He's comed all the way from Trevorrick. Perhaps," he added disarmingly, "you'll 'and me out a jug—a jug of water, my dear.""And 'ave you empt that water away and go after beer? Do you think, Mr. Henwood; you've married a fool?""I wish I 'ad, I wish I 'ad," muttered Henwood and shaking a head on which a rim of grey curls surrounded an unreverend tonsure he came slowly back. "Don't you take no notice of 'er," he said, lifting the mortuary urn out of the window."I don't," said the other simply. "I've 'ad enough of that.""Where there's a will there's a way," said the little undertaker making for the door, "and thiccy urn 'olds just about a pint. I'll be back in a jiffy."Left to himself, Byron glanced down the shop. He felt curiously at home in it; and this was strange because he could not remember ever to have been there before. At the end was a shed lighted from above and furnished with a carpenter's bench, trestles and some newly planed boards. A sack of shavings stood in a corner and the air carried a scent of wood. Byron sniffed it appreciatively. It wakened in him a dim memory, a memory so elusive that, try as he might, he could not capture it. The place was familiar, the boards, the smell of wood, but something was lacking, some sound. As he stood, puzzling over the circumstance, Henwood returned with the brimming urn.Setting it carefully on a small black stool or cricket, he turned to the window and, lifting the lid of the baby's coffin, took from within two rather smeary glasses. "The Lorrd 'elps them as 'elps 'emselves," he said cheerfully. "Missus 'ud never think of looking in thiccy coffin and many a drink I've 'ad from'n."The other drank in silent appreciation of the undertaker's mother-wit. He found it pleasant after the annoyances, the secret fears and elations of the morning, to be in contact with this simple soul, whose one idea was beer and yet more beer."Not much doing," said Henwood, conversationally, as he returned the glasses to their hiding-place, "but what's my loss is other people's gain and, after all, though I do my duty by the dead the livin' 'as always been more to my taste. What can I do for you, Mr. Byron?""I want for 'ee to come over to measure my wife for 'er coffin.""My dear life, you don't mean to say she's dead?""Iss, the poor sawl, she died off in her sleep last night and we want for you to come and do the business."The little man considered, his head on one side. "You want 'er buried decent, I s'pose?"So that Sabina was hurried into the grave, Byron was indifferent as to the furnishings of her journey but he knew better than to let this appear. "Of course I do—although I don't believe in wastin' so much money to be put'n under the turf, when it could be used for something better. The missus used to think same as I do, she was never one for grandeur.""Well, you got to study other people's tongues, you know.""If it wasn't for that," said the countryman with his grim smile, "you'd cut a poor shine, I reckon. Well, what sort of wood be yer goin' to put in?""I've a good piece of oak here, seasoned wood, what about that? I cut a coffin for Colonel Pendarves out of it, but there's enough for another."Bargaining was second nature to these men and Henwood, in suggesting what he knew would not be acceptable, was only observing the rules of the game.Byron made the expected answer. "Oak 'edn't for the likes o' we, it's for the gentry folk. What other 'av you got?""There's ellum. It's good hard wood and lastin'.""Don't matter 'ow long it last when 'tis once in under the earth."Henwood led the way into the shed and pointed to some timber."Why don't you 'av a polished pitch pine wi' brass fittin's? Thiccy stuff was only landed last week." He touched the wood with spatulate hands, the hands of the craftsman. Next to his beer he loved 'a bit o' seasoned wood.' "You wouldn't wish for a handsomer coffin than that 'uld make.""Pitch pine is more like it," agreed the buyer. "What would it cost?""I dunno as I could tell 'ee to a pound or two. There's a lot o' things to consider. There's the linin's and the fittin's; and then there's the gloves for the bearers and their 'arf crowns. Was you thinkin' to 'av one set of bearers or two?""'Tis a braäve way to Church Town and the missus was a big woman, I think we better 'av the two.""Sixteen half-crowns is a good bit. That'll make two pound. You see that tally up.""Well, 'av it done decent, but she wouldn't like no show nor fuss. I know she wouldn't.""We'll 'ave it plain as possible then." He made a note on the wood itself and then stood thoughtful. "When would you like to 'av it?""Mrs. Rosevear said I'd better leave it to you."Henwood tapped his teeth with the broad wood pencil. "Weather's braäve and cold," he said meditatively, "but if she died off sudden——""She done 'er day's work as usual and ate a good supper but doctor said 'twas 'er 'eart. Accident must 'av strained it. 'E didn't think she'd live so long as she 'av.""She must 'er died on a full stomach, so I should bury her up as soon as we can. To-day's Saturday, but I can be ready by Monday.""We must 'av it that way.""Very well, then, tell Mrs. Rosevear we shall leave the 'ouse at 'arf-past one."As Byron went out, the little man's glance travelled beyond him on an errand in no way connected with the business in hand. Life was 'terrible short' and he must make the most of his time, get down as many 'cups o' beer' as he could before his journeymen were set to make that coffin which must be put together without his help.The Farmer's Arms beckoned and he went.
CHAPTER XVII
Leadville left the house with a hasty but heavy step. He had slept but little and his fall the previous evening had jarred and bruised him. Carrying his head even more forward than was his wont, he went along the shaly path which led, a little circuitously, up Dark Head. At another time he would have made the ascent without realizing he was not on level ground but, that morning, he stubbed his feet against the grey rock and stumbled over the cushions of sea-thrift. He was so tired, so stiff, that he, who had the sure-footedness of the mountain sheep, slipped on the smoother surfaces and came near to falling. When, at a turn in the path, a lew corner presented itself, an angle of rock about a few hardy plants, he uttered a grunt of satisfaction. Why should he go farther? Here was a refuge from the questioning of the women, a spot where he could rest. The cliff wall rose between him and the north and, when the southerly sun rose, its first beams would fall on that high but sheltered rock. He flung himself down and, as he lay on the tussocks of colourless grass, seemed in his weather-worn clothes as much a bit of natural waste as the oreweed drying on the rocks below.
The day was mild, one of those we owe to what we are told is not the Gulf Stream but something which has a similar effect. In the growing light the sea shone dimly, a pale expanse of quiet water. On the man's harassed mind the peace of the scene had, as ever, a soothing effect. His glance roved over the treeless country, the rare farmsteads with each a group of grey outbuildings, the Cornish moors and the far range of rounded hills. What he saw was dear to him as it was familiar. Those well-known slopes, swelling softly till they reached Rowtor and Brown Willy, sinking to the abrupt black rocks that edged the sea! Byron seemed to himself a part of that on which he looked. Wastralls had made ham. He was, as he had said in his youth, a clod of Wastralls earth, dust which at the appointed time would fertilize the land to a fresh harvest. To be of it and, at the last, to go back to it, was what he had asked of life. He had been obsessed by one large and simple idea and, in his extreme weariness, he returned to it, looking across the land he loved, lifting his eyes to the good sun. He was outwearied and he longed for warmth and comfort. The shelter of his corner promised forgetfulness. The land lay green about him, the sea sang its thunderous lullaby and sleep was in the soft touch of the air, the thin warmth of the December sun. Pillowing his shaggy head upon his arm, the man drifted from the manifold irritations, the aches and pains of life, into that state which doth so mysteriously resemble death.
For at least two hours, Leadville, warmed through by sunbeams and the sea-scented air, lay deeply asleep. When he stirred the red was in his cheek and his eyes were clear. He looked about him and remembered. He had killed Sabina and now must bear himself so that none should know or even suspect. It would, he thought, be easy enough. She had been a good wife to him and, as she was actually dead, he might show, without tempting Providence, a natural grief. His walk as he went down the hill was brisk and purposeful. To the dead their hour, a sob and a black coat; when they were underground it would be the turn of the living. From the future opening before him, Leadville turned his eyes. Sabina should have her due!
Before Rhoda, full of the importance of her message, reached Cottages, its inhabitants were agog. A little bird had carried the news of Mrs. Byron's death and those whom it least concerned were discussing it. Mrs. Bate, who lived in the end cottage of the hamlet, a tiny two-roomed place, had for many years been Stripper, or, as some call the woman who prepares the dead for their last journey, 'Nurse' to the community. As soon as a death occurred, she was sent for and her duty it was not only to strip the clothes from the corpse and array it in fine linen, but to receive the many visitors and conduct them, in turn, to the death-chamber. On the day of the funeral her position was one of some importance. She was the undertaker's right hand. Indeed, the responsibility for the smooth working of the arrangements rested on her rather than on him.
When the news reached Mrs. Bate, therefore, that Mrs. Byron of Wastralls had died during the night, she knew that she would be wanted. Though the possessor of a handsome jolly face she was given to timid fears and, after raking out her fire, she went across to Mrs. Blewett, the seamstress, better known as 'Aunt Louisa,' to have one of these resolved.
"Mrs. Rosevear sure to be there," she said anxiously, "and she could set Mrs. Byron forth if her liked; but she wouldn't do anybody out of a job, would she?"
'Aunt Louisa,' slim and, in spite of the wear and tear of life still graceful, was fitting the cover to her machine. "She bin poor 'erself," she said encouragingly. The two old bodies had lived in the same parish for seventy years, and as next-door neighbours, for thirty. She knew that Fanny Bate, in spite of her large well-covered frame and square face, found it difficult to stand alone.
"I wouldn't miss doing this," said Mrs. Bate, her old blue eyes still anxious, "for all the golden sovereigns in Trevorrick. When Judgment Day come, there won't be many from 'ere but what will look up and thank me for settin' 'em forth."
"If you set 'em forth," said Aunt Louisa, remembering the many shrouds her fingers had fashioned, "I've made the things for 'm."
"Iss, but I've nursed and tended them as well as set them forth," she would not admit the other's claim to a share in the work of preparing the neighbourhood for burial. "And I think of their souls, too, poor things. 'Tis better to look after their souls than their bodies. 'Tis an awful thing to die not being prepared to meet God. I sing hymns till they'm happy and not afraid to die. I 'ope 'tis all right with poor Mrs. Byron's soul," she paused, a little troubled by Sabina's eminent unpreparedness, "but she was always a good-livin' woman and God is merciful to the last."
Aunt Louisa turned her quiet grey eyes on the other woman and in them was a suggestion from, which Mrs. Bate shrank in pretended ignorance. "Must 'av died pretty and suddent!" said the seamstress.
"Well, I think she has been ailing for some time, she 'aven't been vitty since her accident!" Louisa was so 'forth-y,' but it didn't pay to say all you thought. She, herself, daring enough before the event, knew that 'a still tongue make a wise 'ead.'
"Mrs. Bate!" cried a voice from the road, where old Hawken, rather staggery about the feet, was making shift to carry an armful of fodder to his donkey. "Rhoda's comin' up the lane. I believe she want you."
"Thank you, Mr. 'Awken," said the old woman modestly, "but there's more'n me'll be wanted at Wastralls."
"You're the Stripper, bain't you? and you'll be wanted first. Iss, first and last."
The child, a sensible as well as pretty little girl of ten, came quickly from the direction of the sea. She was shocked to think that kind Auntie S'bina was dead. She was also impressed with the importance of her errand. Seeing Mrs. Bate at Aunt Louisa's door, she ran to her across the little green. "Mammy says, please will you come down to Wastralls at once and will Aunt Louisa come too and bring her machine."
"I'll be prettily glad to do anything for Mrs. Byron and your mammy," responded the latter, a little anxiously, "but I can't carr' the machine, my dear."
Old Hawken who had lingered, curious to hear what passed, seized the opportunity. "If you will wait a minute," he volunteered, "I'll put the ole dunkey in and drave 'ee down."
"Well, 'tis braäve and kind of 'ee, Mr. 'Awken."
"Time like this, everybody must do all they can to 'elp," and, as Mrs. Bate saw her neighbour drive off in the donkey-cart, she regretted that laying out the dead did not necessitate the transport of large and heavy parcels; but it was like Louisa, so it was, she got the best of everything and always had since she was born wrong side of the blanket and everybody allowed it was the right!
Meanwhile Mrs. Tom, her heart heavier than it had been for many a year, had set Sabina's room in order and removed the evidences of humble use. She took up the cocoa-jug, looked into it, then carried it away and put it on the upper shelf in the linhay. With the certainty of knowledge, she went to the bottom drawer of the tall-boy for the clothes in which Mrs. Bate was to 'set her forth'—'no need to stream up anything, S'bina 'ad 'er clothes ready, stockings, night-cap and all!' As Mrs. Tom hung them over the back of a chair, a belated tear ran down her cheek and she glanced from their smooth white folds to the still figure on the bed. A lifetime of friendship! She caught her breath in a sob but, because she had so much to do, tried to check her grief. Yet when, a little later, Tom brought the black dress for which she had asked, he found her sitting on the floor, her head against the chair and her tears falling unheeded on the hem of her friend's shroud.
"Why, mother, dear!" he cried with a quick rush of tenderness. "I shouldn't take on like that. You know we've all got to die sometime."
She put out her arms to him like a forlorn and sorrowful child. "I can't 'elp feeling of it. You know we was schoolgirls together."
"Well, well, my dear, she's gone. I'm pretty and sorry but still she's better off. We 'av got each other still and we need to be thankful for't."
Mrs. Tom clung to him. "I knaw. I've got a lot to be thankful for. I've got you and the childern, but to-day I can't 'elp thinkin' about 'er. What 'appy times we've 'ad together."
"I knaw, my dear." He held her close, closer than was his wont in prosperous times and, with her head on that middle-aged shoulder, Mrs. Tom wept till the rush of grief was spent.
When the women whom she had summoned made their appearance, however, though red-eyed, she had herself in hand. She and Mrs. Con Rosevear being the nearest relatives, the family, only too well aware of the latter's slatternly ways, would look to Mrs. Tom for direction. And she was ready for them. Experience had instructed her in the routine to be followed and, before long, Mrs. Bate with a bowl of hot water, with flannel, soap and scissors, had shut herself into the justice-room: Mrs. Con with the bustling help of a sister-in-law, Mrs. William Brenton of Cumean, was turning out the big parlour; and Aunt Louisa, like an embodied shadow, was slipping from room to room in search of mourning apparel. Mrs. Byron had stores of black material, in the piece and made up, and to the old woman was deputed the congenial work of looking for it. Her sewing machine had been given pride of place on the side-table in the kitchen and, already, the other was growing dark with the first results of her search, with crape, black ribbon, cottons, buttons, etc., a heterogeneous assortment. When Leadville returned from Dark Head, the work of preparation was so far forward, that the women, calling a halt, had gathered for a mid-morning cup of tea.
When life has passed the adventurous stage—if it ever does—it turns to the doings of others for its spice; and, in that homely room, about which were scattered so many black garments that the place looked as if draped for some funereal occasion, the five women discussed the dead.
"'Tis very good of 'ee, Aunt Louisa, to come at once to 'elp wi' the blacks, when I knaw you be always slagged wi' work," said Mrs. Tom, with the usual sweet civility of the Cornishwoman.
"Well, my dear," returned Mrs. Blewett, "at a time like this anybody 'ud do anything. I'd go on me 'ands and knees for Mrs. Byron. I've knawed 'er ever since she was a child and 'ave always done 'er sewin' for 'er. Why, some time back, I made the clothes to set 'er forth with! But I thought she was worth a hundred dead ones. Never thought, as I should live to make up 'er mournin's."
"She's lookin' so natural now," said Mrs. Bate, who had brought from the death-chamber the night-cap which had been put in readiness. The lacy frills of it were limp with the sea-damp and Mrs. Tom had offered to iron and goffer it. She was glad to do for her friend this last of many kindnesses.
"Aw, poor soul, she's at rest now. Gone out of a world of trouble. She's best off where she's to," said Aunt Louisa, in tones of conventional grief.
"I wonder," began Mrs. William Brenton, who being in Trevorrick on a week-end visit to her sister-in-law, had accompanied her and was delighted to find herself in the midst of such interesting occurrences. Living at Polscore, and that only since her marriage, for she was a woman from up-country, she was not deeply versed in local gossip. She endeavoured to remedy this by asking questions but, as she was not noted for discretion, her gleanings were apt to be scanty. "I wonder if she've left any will?"
Neither Mrs. Tom nor Mrs. Constantine looked up. The latter felt that after Leadville's death the farm should come to one of her tall sons, to Freathy, Ern or Tremain; while Mrs. Tom was sure that her girls, being Mrs. Byron's favourites, had the prior claim.
"You ought to know if anybody do," said Aunt Louisa, snipping the thread of a finished hem and turning her grey eyes on Mrs. Tom. The neat precise old woman gave a general impression, in colourless face, smooth scanty braids and capable hands, of greyness. She was like water overhung by trees, a limpid stillness in which shadows moved.
"Well," said Mrs. Tom carefully, "I don't know. S'bina was very close wi' money matters. She never let on to any one what she intend doin'."
Aunt Louisa's clear eyes moved thoughtfully from face to face. With the exception of Mrs. Tom she was far and away the cleverest woman in Trevorrick and she applied her wits—as do all of us, from scholar to ale-house gossip—to gathering stores of useless information. "Never 'eard tell of any will," she said, beginning to tack the seams of a skirt for little Rhoda, "and I never knawed of any lawyer comin' 'ere to do anything about a will."
"What you don't knaw, my dear," said. Mrs. Bate, tactless but admiring, "is good for sore eyes;" and in this statement she voiced so conclusively the opinions of all present that the hopes of both Mrs. Con and Mrs. Tom sank. If there were no will Leadville would inherit and there was no reason he should leave it to a Rosevear. In all probability he would marry again and rear a family. Mrs. Tom thought fleetingly of his infatuation for Gray and what might have been.
"Goodness!" said Mrs. Brenton cheerfully. "There'll be pretty ole capers if everything's left to Mr. Byron. 'E'll be turnin' the place upside down. 'E'll be tellin' us all 'ow to farm. Continuous croppin' 'e call it, but my maister say 'better leave things as they be and not make work when there's no need for it.' 'E don't believe in these new-fangled ways."
"I think," said Mrs. Con uneasily, "'e'll teel all those new things 'e's craikin' about and I wonder what Old Squire would say if 'is 'ead was above the earth."
"Some do say 'is 'ead's up now." Mrs. Tom's smile was faint, a twitch of the lips, a recognition of Mrs. Con's tremulous outlook. "I think if Leadville was to start 'is sugar-beet and terbacker teelin' 'e 'ud 'av a 'ot time wi' Old Squire!"
"Mrs. Byron," began Aunt Louisa and stopped to re-thread her needle. She spoke as if her mouth were full of pins. Use had made her able to speak through a bristlingchevaux de frisewhile age made her forget whether the pins were there or not. "Mrs. Byron is the livin' image of Old Squire as I remember'n." She glanced at his elbow-chair, wide and built with a cunning hand. Pushed against the wall, its red cushions were hidden under billows of black material, but this drapery only made its outlines the more regal. None of those who looked but thought of the man for whom it had been made as still dimly occupying it. More than one had a glimpse of silver hair above a masterful face and caught the faint sound of an imperious voice. "I seed'n when 'e was in 'is coffin," continued Louisa, recalling further a mountainous bulk. "I warn't higher than the table when 'e died but I can remember mother takin' me in."
"'E was a great big man, wasn't 'e?" asked Mrs. Brenton.
"A lickin' great feller!" Aunt Louisa basted as she talked and the other women, most of them younger by a generation, listened with interest. With the exception of Mrs. Brenton they knew why the old woman's mother had been anxious to imprint the features of Freathy Rosevear on her child's plastic memory. "When he was dead," continued Aunt Louisa, who in her neatness, her precision, was as unlike her sire as any child might be, "they couldn't get his coffin overstairs. They had to take it up in pieces and put'n together in's bedroom. And then they couldn't get'n out. They 'ad to take out the big winder in the end of the 'ouse and slide'n down over the boords. I can remember as if 'twere yesterday. 'E was so 'eavy they had the bier out from Stowe to carr'n; for 'twas more'n the bearers could manage."
"And S'bina was like 'im," said Mrs. Con curiously. She had heard the tale of Old Squire's funeral before but that his granddaughter resembled him so closely was new to her.
"The spit of 'n. 'E was a great big red-faced feller with flamin' 'air which was always stickin' up on end and 'is voice, it was like it was going to wake the dead."
"I wonder at your mother takin' you to see 'im, an old dead man. It don't 'ardly seem the thing, do it?" said Mrs. Brenton looking round at the others but finding them, to her surprise, dull and unresponsive.
"She wanted for me to remember what 'e was like," said the old woman placidly and Mrs. Bate, who had received the night-cap from Mrs. Tom and was absent-mindedly smoothing the strings, smiled to herself a little wistfully. She was old now, but she had been a handsome maid. If only she had been alive when Old Squire was in his prime!
"I shouldn't think," said Mrs. Con, putting down her empty cup and leaning both elbows comfortably on the table, "that S'bina's coffin would cost so much, now, without laigs? Twill be all that the shorter and 'twont be so 'cavy for the men to carry. I should think one set of bearers 'd do."
"Surely," urged Mrs. Brenton, "they'll make it the right size? Twill look funny to 'av a dumpy coffin."
"'Ere, Betsy, you can tack this seam," said Mrs. Tom, who, seeing no reason for any one to be idle, was apportioning the sewing. This done she spoke with authority. "They must make S'bina's coffin the right length; for when 'er laigs was cut off she wouldn't 'av them throwed away. 'When I'm buried up,' she say, 'I'll 'av me laigs with me. Anybody can't rise up on the Last Day without laigs!'"
The others showed surprise. "Very thoughtful of 'er, I'm sure," said Mrs. Brenton.
"No," said Aunt Louisa in her pin-muted voice, "'twouldn't be decent to go before 'er Maker wi'out laigs. But I didn't know she 'ad 'em. Wherever's she kept 'em to?"
"Well, she got 'em in a box, salted away. She brought 'em 'ome from the 'orspital and they'm in the li'l parlour in the cupboard. I think we'd better get'n out against Mr. 'Enwood come to measure 'er."
"She'll make a vitty corpse, after all," said Mrs. Con, who had been haunted by the thought of that legless body and who would now be able to think of her cousin as made whole by the restoration of the carefully preserved limbs. Her person, large and soft, the person of a big eater and small doer, heaved in a gusty sigh of satisfaction. "Nights I've lied thinkin' when she die there'd 'av to be something put in the coffin to keep 'er from boompin' up and down."
Mrs. Bate got up. "I'll just put on 'er cap and then you can all come in and see 'er. She's the fines' body I've set forth for many a day. Some fat body, too, she be, some 'andsome body, fat as butter."
Before the others could take advantage of this invitation which, with the exception of Mrs. Con they were naturally eager to do, Leadville's step was heard on the linhay flags and he at once became the centre of interest. The corpse could wait but this was their first glimpse of the bereaved. Curiosity was veiled by industry and politeness and like the fates they snipped and stitched.
Fresh from his sleep in the sunshine and ready to do his part, he paused, on his way in, to break his fast. As he ate, the whirr of the sewing-machine caught his ear and at once some of his briskness passed.
"Well, Mrs. Tom, I'm come back," he cried, pulling open the little door. To him, the room, always dark, seemed full of soberly clad women and, between them, he made out masses of black material which, overflowing chairs and tables, lay in discreet heaps on the clean blue floor. The women glanced up with conventional murmurs and he perceived that, for the nonce, it was they who were at home there and not he. "What is there for me to do?"
Isolda put down the child's frock on which she was at work. "I think you better go into Stowe and see Mr. Henwood and tell'n to come out and measure 'er for 'er coffin."
Leadville viewed the task set him with disfavour. "I can't abide that job."
"It bain't a bit of good for 'ee to talk like that, my dear," said Mrs. Tom, as to a fractious child, "you know it's got to be done. As well 'av it done first as last."
"I know that." Traffic in the gruesome ceremonial of death was repugnant to him and he would have liked to take a broom and sweep these women and their blacks out of Wastralls, to clear the place of them and have it once more sweet and clean. "Still 'tis 'ard lines on a poor feller."
"Of course it be but, there, it can't be 'elped. I don't want to bother you more'n I can 'elp; but still there's things as must be seen to."
He stood before her, balancing first on one foot, then on the other.
"Well?" he said.
"There's the funeral and what about the food?"
"Tedn't a bit of good for 'ee to ask me. You must do zactly as you like. You knaw best, better than I do."
"I thought," she pursued, bent on getting his assent to the arrangements she considered should be made, "about 'avin' a 'am and a couple of chicken and a piece of beef and then I thought we'd better 'ave a couple of tarts and white cake and yeller cake: and tea. That will be enough."
"Iss," he said, longing to get away, "well, you know what to do."
"And you'll 'av to go and see doctor to get a certificate before you go down to Mr. 'Enwood. As 'e was 'ere yesterday, 'e may not want an inquest—still you never know."
"Well, I'll see'n."
"What day be yer thinkin' to 'av the funeral?"
Leadville was anxious to have it as soon as possible, but knew that this desire was not one to which he could give utterance. "I can't abear to think of 't," he said, conscious of his audience. "I feel as if I'm waitin' for 'er to come in. 'Tidn't like she's dead, to me."
The women glanced at him kindly. They were sorry for him, a poor forlorn creature, a widow man. "I'm afraid," said Mrs. Tom, regretfully, "we shall 'av to bury 'er up pretty quick. Mrs. Bate think she oughtn't to be kep' longer'n Monday."
"Monday?" cried the man and, for a moment, lifted his heavy lids and stared at her. "You don't mean it? Why it's now Saturday?"
"Well, my dear, she died on a full stomach and you know you can't keep her very long. Still I should be the last to 'urry 'er into 'er grave. We'll see what Mr. 'Enwood say."
Mrs. Con, glad of a moment's respite from the sewing, had been watching the speakers. "What 'av 'ee got on yer face there?" she asked peering, with short-sighted eyes, at a brown smear on the man's forehead, the smear his seal-blooded hand had made the previous evening when wiping away the drops of his fear.
"'E 'aven't washed yet," interposed Mrs. Tom and turned back to Byron. "I've put yer black clothes upstairs on yer bed and there's plenty of 'ot water you can 'av."
"Look like you've got blood there," persisted Mrs. Con, "'av you cut yerself?"
Byron swung over to the little mirror by the range. Across his forehead lay a broad smear, dark brown in hue. Though he recognized it instantly as blood, his forgetfulness of the unimportant past prevented his being able to account for it and superstitious dread swooped on him out of a clear sky.
"I dunno what that is," he stammered, already shaken out of his reasonableness and with a vague recollection of a similar episode on the previous evening. "It do look like blood! 'Owever did it get there?"
"Don't 'ee worry, Leadville," soothed Mrs. Tom and who knows whether her words were accidental or chosen. "There's no mark o' Cain on 'ee, Lorrd be praised."
"Mark o' Cain!" he muttered and Mrs. Tom saw leap into his eyes a questioning terror.
"I expect you've scratched yourself somewhere," she said easily. "Take'n go and wash it off." Pouring hot water into a dipper she offered it to him and Leadville, treading delicately among the heaps of black material, went out. He had brought from Dark Head a clear simplicity of purpose, but now his mind was like a ruffled pool. "Mark o' Cain?" he muttered to himself as he went upstairs. "What do they knaw about it? It's all tommy-rot, they can't knaw anything, 'tis only what they'm surmisin'. Can't trust they women, their tongues is always waggin'. They'll ferret out the last rat that's in the mow."
As he put his hands into the dipper he noticed they were trembling and, with this, his caution began to reassert itself. The women must not be allowed to suspect that there was anything concealed. "If I don't take care," he admonished himself, "I shall find meself in a box. Pretty feller me, to take so much notice o' they. I've done more'n they'll ever bear to think on and 'ere I'm all twitchy because of their silly talk."
After washing his face he examined it in the toilet-glass for any sign of a hurt, but the skin was unbroken.
"I 'aven't cut meself," he said perplexedly, and suddenly the episode of the seal occurred to him. He laughed aloud. "Mark o' Cain indeed! And me, what don't believe in they old ideas! Iss, they'm too fanciful for our day o' livin'." He shook his heavy shoulders. "I mus' pull meself together. I must remember, only thing that's 'appened is that I've lost the missus—poor sawl."
In the room below the women had returned to their work of 'makin' up the mournin's.'
"'E seem rather cut up about it, not like 'e belong to be," commented Aunt Louisa.
"Well, what can 'ee expect," said Mrs. Brenton, "only lostin' 'is wife this mornin'? Can't expect for'm to be bright and cheerful!"
"I don't expect anything," said the old woman, "still you can't 'elp noticin' things."
CHAPTER XVIII
As Leadville on his black stallion turned the corner below Church Town, he met the Wastralls wagon coming back from Stowe with a load of coal and oil. The sight of the teamster, leading his horse as it zigzagged across the sharp ascent, brought the other a sudden tingling realization of power. Yesterday Rosevear had been a hind on his wife's farm and Byron, though ostensibly, blusteringly master, had not been able to dismiss him. Now, opportunity, spruce and debonair, was walking towards him up the wide curve of the road.
Reining in his horse—a gift from Sabina, who liked him to be well mounted—he waited till Jim, this 'proper jump-the-country' was abreast of him.
"The missus is gone!" He was not thinking of Sabina but of the alteration in their relative position.
Jim's face had been as cheerful as his thoughts. Though in workaday clothes he wore them with a holiday air and had adorned his cap with the iridescent wing-feather of a drake. He was in pairing mood and had seen in Stowe 'a lickin' great wardrobe' that he would like for Gray 'if she'd a mind to't.' His nest-building thoughts were scattered by Byron's untimely news and his face lengthened. "Gone?" he repeated. "'E don't say so? Poor sawl! I'm awful sorry. Was it a fit or what was it?"
Byron, impatient to assert himself, ignored the question. Sitting his horse with a touch of swagger he said truculently: "I'll leave yer know I'm maister now."
Jim believed that he had a reason to dislike the speaker and none whatever to avoid a quarrel. Better bad blood between them than that Byron, under the cloak of kinship, should be able to come worrying Gray.
"Iss," he said, accepting the challenge, "missus is 'ardly cold, but still I s'pose you think you'm maister now."
In Byron's fierce eyes was the longing to begin the inevitable fight. The youth, blithe and with his handsome face upturned, was incarnate provocation. One hearty blow and Byron saw the contour of that admirable nose for ever changed.
"When you finish up to-night you can come in," he growled, "and I'll pay you your wages. I don't want you 'ere, on the place, any longer."
Jim did not seem impressed. "I can clear now if you like." It would serve the 'ole hunks' right if he were left with the horse and wagon on his hands.
"An' if yer don't want to 'av yer bones broken," continued the other, pausing on a darkling thought that the sea did not always give up its dead, "you'll clear out of this part altogether."
In Jim's eyes was a little dancing light. "Shen't clear out for the likes of you."
"Well, now, you take this for a warning. If you don't you'll wish you 'ad."
"We'll see about that," and being of those whose spirits rise at the prospect of a fight he smiled. "We'll see who is the best man of the two, me or you."
A grimmer smile was on Byron's face. Knowing his strength he could look forward, past the irritating unpropitious moment, to the happy hour when they should come to grips. "Oo d'yer think's afraid of you, yer banty cock?" he cried, contemptuously, and prepared to ride on.
"If you was as big as a church and tower I ain't afraid," cried the youth after him. As the affair seemed to be hanging fire, he tried a rousing word. "An' if I'm in yer way I shall stay where I'm to."
Byron flashed him a look full of sinister possibilities, the look of one who had taken into consideration that cliffs are sheer and nights dark. "I'll see about that, then."
The prospect of a fight was dwindling into nothingness. "There's people," said Jim, on a last hope, "'ud rather see me than you."
"Any more of your cheek, young sprat, and I'll wring your neck."
But he had realized the countryside would cry shame if he were seen brawling in public while his wife lay dead at home. They would not be blinded to the reason and such knowledge might breed suspicion. He must wait. Grinding his heel into the stallion's side he started at a gallop, leaving Jim disappointed but smiling, for with him, too, it was a case of 'Gay go the Gordons.'
A little annoyance was enough to upset Byron for hours. In a fume of exasperation and bitter feeling he now urged his horse to a speed which drew on him the attention of other wayfarers.
"If 'e ride that rate 'e must be goin' after a doctor. I should think man's missis was goin' to straw—first child, too," said a man from Little Petherick to whom Leadville was a stranger.
"Thiccy feller's Mr. Byron to Wastralls," corrected his companion, "and I know there's no chick nor child there, nor any comin'. 'E do always ride as if Old Nick was after 'un. 'E'll break 'is neck one of these odd days."
The short interview with Rosevear had been unsatisfactory in more ways than one, for the youth's last words had planted a thorn. Not only had he smiled at Byron's threats but his smile, had been of a quality which made the other's blood run cold. Behind it lay assurance, a knowledge he might not divulge but which, like a hidden weapon, was for use at need. The other's jealousy, temporarily in abeyance, stirred and he sought a reason, other than the simple love of fighting inherent in the male, for Jim's smile. Not many cared to try conclusions with the strongest man in the parish. Byron had browbeaten the few who crossed his path, but Jim was game. What had happened to give him confidence? How were matters between him and Gray? That drive into Stowe! The farmer ground his teeth at the thought of it. Was she promised and did Rosevear feel sure of her? A fool for his pains! Such promises were of cobweb stuff. She might promise—his little umuntz—for she did not know, but the end would be the same.
The black stallion was damp with sweat when Byron pulled up at Dr. Derek's freshly painted gate—which in its brightness, its specklessness, was the outward and visible sign of the doctor's tastes! A pathway, gravelled with small white stones and edged with scarlet tiles, led directly to a cream-coloured house, the wide windows of which were brilliantly clean but uncurtained. On the door a highly polished knocker twinkled above a discreetly closed brass letter-flap. Dr. Derek was just returned from his morning round and, though the midday meal was on the table, his constant curiosity with regard to Mrs. Byron, would not allow him to keep her husband waiting. The farmer was, therefore, shown at once into the consulting-room.
The little doctor, round and rosy, was seated before a table of light polished wood. Byron, as he went up the room, gathered an impression of bright glass and metal surfaces, in a well-lighted sunshiny place. So bright was everything, the glass cupboards full of silver implements, the polished woods, the glazed bookcases, that the man, used to low tones within doors, blinked. The high lights of innumerable small objects, the sharply defined pattern of carpet and upholstered chair, confused him and for a moment he stood tongue-tied. At last the difficult words came.
"I've bad news for 'ee, sir."
If that well-regulated organ, which Dr. Derek called his heart, ever varied in its beat this was one of the occasions. He had been convinced that with such injuries as had been inflicted by her accident Mrs. Byron could not recover and, by doing so, she had proved him mistaken. Was it possible that after all...
"Sorry to hear it, Byron. The missus isn't worse, I hope?"
The man breathed heavily. "I'm sorry to tell 'ee, sir, she's gone."
Dr. Derek sat back in his cane elbow-chair. It was a sign, with him, of elation but his face was decorously long. "Dear, dear, you don't say so? How did it happen?"
Byron twisted his hat in his hands. In the meticulously clean room he showed clumsy, weather-browned and out of place. "She wasn't like herself all day, yesterday," he volunteered after a pause, during which Dr. Derek, waiting and knowing he must wait, had occupied himself with a retrospect. No woman could survive such injuries. If it had been one leg or if the head had not been hurt! Her partial recovery had been the effort of a healthy organism, a fine effort but foredoomed. The event had justified his prognosis. "She went to bed early," continued Byron, dragging out his words as if they were creatures with a will opposed to his, "she thought if she did she might be better by the mornin'."
"Did she take her food?"
"She was eatin' like a 'adger last night. I couldn't 'elp noticing it. I thought 'twas a poor sign."
"What did she have for supper?"
Byron recalled, not the articles of food but, the look of the table. "Well, I believe as she 'ad a piece of cold pork."
"Ah!" said the doctor and, behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of the investigator who has run a fact to earth. "And I said she was to be careful about her food. If you remember I recommended a light diet?"
Byron, without understanding it, had noted the satisfaction. "Iss, doctor, but 'er mind was runnin' on pork." He did not know what a light diet was nor that fat pork, when indulged in freely and late at night, was unwholesome.
"A hearty meal," mused the doctor, "and a heart suffering from overstrain. Well—what happened?"
"Since 'er accident, she've been sleepin' downstairs and I never 'eard nothin' of 'er till Mrs. Rosevear come over early this mornin' and found 'er dead in bed." He shook his head. "It frightened all the lot of us."
The doctor, turning to a brass dish, picked up an agate penholder. "Very sad, Byron, very sad; but I'm afraid only what was to be expected."
It was the countryman's turn to experience surprise. The doctor had taken Sabina's death as a matter of course. Very satisfactory, but on what grounds? "You don't say so, sir," he began cautiously. "I'd no idea!"
"If people in a weak state of health will eat pork late at night, in other words give their stomach more work than it is capable of doing," explained Dr. Derek and, behind his twinkling spectacles, his cold and keen eyes emitted a friendly gleam, "the heart is apt to stop work. It's not a bad death, Byron. She didn't suffer."
"I'm pretty and thankful to hear that, sir. We was rather afraid, poor sawl, there by 'erself, might 'av 'ad a 'ard death."
"You can put that fear out of your mind. In all probability she passed in her sleep, just—" he snapped his fingers—"snuffed out. Now, let's see, do you want me to come over?"
So far, matters had gone better than Byron had dared to hope; but now his heart sank. If Dr. Derek were to see Sabina he might realize—Byron accredited him with miraculous powers—on what a fairy superstructure his diagnosis was built. "Well, sir," he said, "just as you like. If you think you ought to come, do so. I shouldn't like for people to talk after she were buried up and say we didn't do what we ought to 'ave done; but she's dead and stiff."
"You don't make a point of it, then?"
"I want you to zactly please yerself, sir."
"Humph!" The doctor considered. "I saw her yesterday and I'm pretty busy. Yes, yes, it isn't necessary." His gold nib in its cool agate holder began to run in smooth flowing style over a sheet of partly printed paper. "Show that to the undertaker," he said, passing the certificate to Byron.
"Thank you, doctor, and for all the trouble you've took of 'er." He placed the paper carefully in his pocketbook and prepared to go. "Seems rather hard that after all you couldn't pull 'er through!"
In Dr. Derek's bosom the professional man was often at war with the scientific. "The fact is, Byron," he said honestly, "I didn't expect to save her. I've never thought she would live so long." His experienced glance dwelt fleetingly on the other's face. "You look pretty seedy, yourself. If you don't take care we shall have you on the sick list."
"Well, sir, 'twas awful sudden, 'twas. I don't feel to believe she's really gone. I'm like I'm in a dream." But, in his hidden mind, he was wondering why the man who saw so much could not pierce to the little more.
"Must have been a terrible shock to you. When is the funeral to be?"
"Monday, I believe, sir."
"Walking, I suppose?"
The man looked surprised. "What else would we 'av, sir?"
"No, of course, I was forgetting. Well, I'll try to come to it. I had the greatest possible respect for your wife as a farmer. She should have been a man."
"'Tis great respect you're payin' her, sir."
The doctor smiled enigmatically. "That's as may be," he said and, indeed, for him to say a woman resembled a man was the reverse of complimentary. In his experience the sterile female frequently approximated to the male in type and habits; and he thought such approximation a sign of degeneracy. He had been interested from a scientific point of view in Mrs. Byron. She had led a man's life and she was childless. Was the latter a consequence, or had the childlessness determined her way of life? He could find arguments in support of both theories.
Byron had brought to the interview a mind filled with misgiving. Dr. Derek had a reputation for ability and the other had hardly ventured to hope his tale would pass muster. He had told the truth because he dared not do other and behold it had stood him in good stead, that and the fact that Dr. Derek, for the sake of his professional reputation, had not been altogether sorry to hear of Mrs. Byron's death. As he rode at a walking pace down the hilly street the farmer could congratulate himself on the outcome.
The streets of Stowe, like spokes of a wheel, converge on the quay; and back from it, but near at hand, lie the huddle of warehouses, shops and inns, which supply the needs of sailormen. The quayside itself is, at low tide, a sheer drop of many feet; but the children play on its unprotected verge and the drunken man rolls gaily home from the waterside pubs and there is no tale of casualties. In one of the less frequented streets, opposite the Farmer's Arms, stood the undertaker's shop with, in the window, by way of advertisement, a baby's coffin and a hollow mortuary urn. Henwood, the undertaker, a little chattery man, fond of society and overfond of his glass, was generally to be found on his neighbour's premises; and, when Byron rode up, was fetched therefrom by the wife whose tongue was supposed to drive him thither. As Dr. Derek would have said, however, it was a moot point whether Mrs. Henwood's temper was the cause of his going, or his going the cause of her temper.
He came in, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and, the subject of beer being to him the most congenial in the world, opened the proceedings by asking Byron if he would have a glass. The latter, preoccupied and anxious, had not known he was thirsty.
"I don't mind if I do 'av one," he said, with that increase of cordiality which an offer of hospitality induces.
"Wait a moment, then." Little Henwood, who was a man of girth rather than height, rolled himself down the shop. When he reached the door at the end, he opened the upper half and called to some one within. "Sandra! would you mind running in for a jug of beer?"
A clatter of tin pans reached Byron's ears, then a voice the reverse of amiable. "Do you think I'm going to run my foot in and out for you—yer walkin' beer-barr'l? Fetch it yerself."
"'Tidn't fer me, my dear," twittered the little man.
"Mr. Byron don't want beer when he's come for yer to make a coffin. 'Tis for yerself I reckon and quench yer thirst in this world you can but Lorrd knows yer throat will be dry enough in the next."
"Well, 'av it your own way then, my dear, but Mr. Byron's thirsty as a gull. He's comed all the way from Trevorrick. Perhaps," he added disarmingly, "you'll 'and me out a jug—a jug of water, my dear."
"And 'ave you empt that water away and go after beer? Do you think, Mr. Henwood; you've married a fool?"
"I wish I 'ad, I wish I 'ad," muttered Henwood and shaking a head on which a rim of grey curls surrounded an unreverend tonsure he came slowly back. "Don't you take no notice of 'er," he said, lifting the mortuary urn out of the window.
"I don't," said the other simply. "I've 'ad enough of that."
"Where there's a will there's a way," said the little undertaker making for the door, "and thiccy urn 'olds just about a pint. I'll be back in a jiffy."
Left to himself, Byron glanced down the shop. He felt curiously at home in it; and this was strange because he could not remember ever to have been there before. At the end was a shed lighted from above and furnished with a carpenter's bench, trestles and some newly planed boards. A sack of shavings stood in a corner and the air carried a scent of wood. Byron sniffed it appreciatively. It wakened in him a dim memory, a memory so elusive that, try as he might, he could not capture it. The place was familiar, the boards, the smell of wood, but something was lacking, some sound. As he stood, puzzling over the circumstance, Henwood returned with the brimming urn.
Setting it carefully on a small black stool or cricket, he turned to the window and, lifting the lid of the baby's coffin, took from within two rather smeary glasses. "The Lorrd 'elps them as 'elps 'emselves," he said cheerfully. "Missus 'ud never think of looking in thiccy coffin and many a drink I've 'ad from'n."
The other drank in silent appreciation of the undertaker's mother-wit. He found it pleasant after the annoyances, the secret fears and elations of the morning, to be in contact with this simple soul, whose one idea was beer and yet more beer.
"Not much doing," said Henwood, conversationally, as he returned the glasses to their hiding-place, "but what's my loss is other people's gain and, after all, though I do my duty by the dead the livin' 'as always been more to my taste. What can I do for you, Mr. Byron?"
"I want for 'ee to come over to measure my wife for 'er coffin."
"My dear life, you don't mean to say she's dead?"
"Iss, the poor sawl, she died off in her sleep last night and we want for you to come and do the business."
The little man considered, his head on one side. "You want 'er buried decent, I s'pose?"
So that Sabina was hurried into the grave, Byron was indifferent as to the furnishings of her journey but he knew better than to let this appear. "Of course I do—although I don't believe in wastin' so much money to be put'n under the turf, when it could be used for something better. The missus used to think same as I do, she was never one for grandeur."
"Well, you got to study other people's tongues, you know."
"If it wasn't for that," said the countryman with his grim smile, "you'd cut a poor shine, I reckon. Well, what sort of wood be yer goin' to put in?"
"I've a good piece of oak here, seasoned wood, what about that? I cut a coffin for Colonel Pendarves out of it, but there's enough for another."
Bargaining was second nature to these men and Henwood, in suggesting what he knew would not be acceptable, was only observing the rules of the game.
Byron made the expected answer. "Oak 'edn't for the likes o' we, it's for the gentry folk. What other 'av you got?"
"There's ellum. It's good hard wood and lastin'."
"Don't matter 'ow long it last when 'tis once in under the earth."
Henwood led the way into the shed and pointed to some timber.
"Why don't you 'av a polished pitch pine wi' brass fittin's? Thiccy stuff was only landed last week." He touched the wood with spatulate hands, the hands of the craftsman. Next to his beer he loved 'a bit o' seasoned wood.' "You wouldn't wish for a handsomer coffin than that 'uld make."
"Pitch pine is more like it," agreed the buyer. "What would it cost?"
"I dunno as I could tell 'ee to a pound or two. There's a lot o' things to consider. There's the linin's and the fittin's; and then there's the gloves for the bearers and their 'arf crowns. Was you thinkin' to 'av one set of bearers or two?"
"'Tis a braäve way to Church Town and the missus was a big woman, I think we better 'av the two."
"Sixteen half-crowns is a good bit. That'll make two pound. You see that tally up."
"Well, 'av it done decent, but she wouldn't like no show nor fuss. I know she wouldn't."
"We'll 'ave it plain as possible then." He made a note on the wood itself and then stood thoughtful. "When would you like to 'av it?"
"Mrs. Rosevear said I'd better leave it to you."
Henwood tapped his teeth with the broad wood pencil. "Weather's braäve and cold," he said meditatively, "but if she died off sudden——"
"She done 'er day's work as usual and ate a good supper but doctor said 'twas 'er 'eart. Accident must 'av strained it. 'E didn't think she'd live so long as she 'av."
"She must 'er died on a full stomach, so I should bury her up as soon as we can. To-day's Saturday, but I can be ready by Monday."
"We must 'av it that way."
"Very well, then, tell Mrs. Rosevear we shall leave the 'ouse at 'arf-past one."
As Byron went out, the little man's glance travelled beyond him on an errand in no way connected with the business in hand. Life was 'terrible short' and he must make the most of his time, get down as many 'cups o' beer' as he could before his journeymen were set to make that coffin which must be put together without his help.
The Farmer's Arms beckoned and he went.