Part 3

"Why, what for?" asked Johnny, though the circumstance of the short candle startled his confidence. "He might get a light from somewhere else, 'stead o' comin' all the way back."

"But where?" asked Mrs. May. "There's only the Dun Cow, an' he might almost as well come home--besides, he wouldn't ask 'em."

Johnny left the chair, and joined his mother at the door. As they listened a more regular sound made itself plain, amid the low hum of the trees; footsteps. "Here he comes," said Johnny.

But the sound neared and the steps were long and the tread was heavy. In a few moments Bob Smallpiece's voice came from the gloom, wishing them good-night.

Mrs. May called to him. "Have you seen gran'dad anywhere, Mr. Smallpiece?"

The keeper checked his strides, and came to the garden gate, piebald with the light from the cottage door. "No," he said, "I ain't run across him, nor seen his light anywheres. Know which way he went?"

"He was just going to Wormleyton Pits an' back, that's all."

"Well, I've just come straight across the Pits, an' as straight here as ever I could go, past the Dun Cow; an' ain't seen ne'er a sign of him. Want him particular?"

"I'm gettin' nervous about him, Mr. Smallpiece--somehow I'm frightened to-night. He went out about six, an' now it don't want much to nine, an' he only had a bit o' candle that wouldn't burn an hour. And he never meant stopping long, I know, 'cause of a case he's got to set. I thought p'raps you might ha' seen--"

"No, I see nothin' of him. But I'll go back to the Pits now, if you like, an' welcome."

"I'd be sorry to bother you, but I would like someone to go. Here, Johnny, go along, there's a good boy."

"All right, all right," the keeper exclaimed cheerfully. "We'll go together. I expect he's invented some new speeches o' moth, an' he's forgot all about his light, thinkin' out the improvements. It ain't the first time he's been out o' night about here, anyhow. Not likely to lose himself, is Mr. May."

Johnny had his cap and was at the gate; and in a moment the keeper and he were mounting the slope.

"Mother's worryin' herself over nothing to-night," Johnny grumbled. "Gran'dad's been later 'n this many's a time, an' she never said a word. Why, when he gets after caterpillars an' things he forgets everything."

They walked on among the trees. Presently, "How long is it since your father died?" Bob Smallpiece asked abruptly.

"Nine years, now, and more."

"Mother might ha' married agen, I s'pose?"

"I dunno. Very likely. Never heard her say nothing."

Bob Smallpiece walked on with no more reply than a grunt. Soon a light from the Dun Cow twinkled through the bordering coppice, and in a few paces they were up at the wood's edge.

"No light along the road," the keeper said, glancing to left and right, and making across the hard gravel.

"There's somebody," Johnny exclaimed, pointing up the pale road.

"Drunk," objected the other. And truly the indistinct figure staggered and floundered. "An' goin' the wrong way. Chap just out o' the Dun Cow. Come on."

But Johnny's gaze did not shift. "It's gran'dad!" he cried suddenly, and started running.

Bob Smallpiece sprang after him, and in twenty paces they were running abreast. As they neared the old man they could hear him talking rapidly, in a monotonous, high-pitched voice; he was hatless, and though they called he took no heed, but stumbled on as one seeing and hearing nothing; till, as the keeper reached to seize his arm, he trod in a gulley and fell forward.

The shock interrupted his talk, and he breathed heavily, staring still before him, as he regained his uncertain foothold, and reeled a step farther. Then Bob Smallpiece grasped him above the elbow, and shouted his name.

"What's the matter, gran'dad?" Johnny demanded. "Ill?"

The old man glared fixedly, and made as though to resume his course.

"Why, what's this?" said Bob Smallpiece, retaining the arm, and lifting a hand gently to the old man's hair. It was blood, dotted and trickling. "Lord! he's had a bad wipe over the head," said Bob, and with that lifted old May in his arms, as a nurse lifts a child. "Theydon's nearest; run, Johnny boy--run like blazes an' fetch the doctor tantivy!"

"Take him into the Dun Cow?"

"No--home's best, an' save shiftin' him twice. Run it!"

"Purple Emperors an' Small Coppers," began the old man again in his shrill chatter. "Small Coppers an' Marsh Ringlets everywhere, and my bag full o' letters at the beginning of the round, but I finished my round and now they're all gone; all gone because o' London comin', an' I give in my empty bag--" and so he tailed off into indistinguishable gabble, while Bob Smallpiece carried him into the wood.

To Johnny, scudding madly toward Theydon, it imparted a grotesque horror, as of some absurd nightmare, this baby-babble of his white-haired grandfather, carried baby-fashion. He blinked as he ran, and felt his head for his cap, half believing that he ran in a dream in very truth.

V.

MRS. MAY still stood at the cottage door, and the keeper, warned by the light, called from a little distance. "Here we are, Mrs. May," he said, as cheerfully as might be. "He's all right--just had a little accident, that's all. So I'm carryin' him. Don't be frightened; get a little water--I think he's got a bit of a cut on the head. But it's nothing to fluster about." . . . And so assuring and protesting, Bob brought the old man in.

The woman saw the staring grey face and the blood. "O-o-o--my God!" she quavered, stricken sick and pale. "He's--he's--"

"No, no. No, no! Keep steady and help. Shift the table, an' I'll put him down on the rug."

She mastered herself, and said no more. The old man, whose babble had sunk to an indistinct mutter, was no sooner laid on the floor than he made a vague effort to rise, as though to continue on his way. But he was feebler than before, and Bob Smallpiece pressed him gently back upon the new-mended coat, doubled to make a pillow.

Nan May, tense and white, curbed her agitation, ministering and suffering in silence. Years before a man had been carried home to her thus, but then all was over, and after the first numbness grief could take its vent. Once she asked Bob Smallpiece, in a whisper, how it had happened. He told how little he knew, and save for passing the words to Bessy, wakened by unwonted sounds, Mrs. May said nothing. Bessy, in her nightgown, sat on the stairs, hugging her crutch, and sobbing with what quietness she could compel of herself.

There was a little brandy in a quartern bottle, and the keeper thought it well to force the spirit between the old man's teeth, while Mrs. May bathed the head and washed away the clotted blood. As they did so the wheels of the doctor's dog-cart were heard in the lane, and soon the doctor came in at the door, pulling off his gloves.

Johnny stood, pale, helpless, and still almost breathless, behind the group, while the doctor knelt at his grandfather's side. There was a contused wound at the top of the head, the doctor could see, a little back, not serious. But blood still dripped from the ears, and the doctor shook his head. "Fracture of the base," he said, as to himself.

Reviving a little, because of the brandy and the bathing, the old man once more made a motion as if to rise, his eyes grew brighter, though fixed still, and his voice rose distinctly as ever.

"--took the bag in, yes. London's comin' fast, London's comin' an' a-frightenin' out the butterflies. London's a-drivin' the butterflies out o' my round, out o' my round, an' butterflies can't live near it. London's out o' my round an' I've done my round an' now I'll give in the empty bag. Take the bag: an' look for the pension. That's the 'vantage o' the Pos'-Office, John. Some gets pensions but some don', but the butterflies'll last my time I hope: an' Haskins he kep' bees, but I'm hopin' to finish my roun'--" and so on and so on till the voice fell again and the muttering was fainter than before.

Bob Smallpiece stood awkwardly by, unwilling to remain a useless intruder, but just as reluctant to desert friends in trouble. Presently he bethought himself that work was still to do in inquiry how the old man's hurt had befallen, whether by accident or attack; perhaps, indeed, to inform the police, and that in good time. So he asked, turning his hat about in his hands, if there was anything else he could do.

"Nothing more, Smallpiece, thanks," the doctor said, with an unmistakable lift of the brows and a glance at the door.

"God bless you for helpin' us, Mr. Smallpiece," Mrs. May said as she let him out. "I'll let you know how he is in the mornin' if you can't call." And when the door was shut, "Go to bed, Johnny, my boy, and take a rest." But Johnny went no farther than the stairs, and sat there with his sister.

The old man's muttering ceased wholly, and he breathed heavily, stertorously. The doctor rose to his feet and turned to Mrs. May.

"Won't you tell me, sir," she said. "Is it--is it--"

"It is very serious," the doctor said gravely; and added with impressive slowness, "very serious indeed."

The woman took a grip of the table, and caught three quick breaths.

"You must keep yourself calm, and you must bear up. You must prepare yourself--in case of something very bad indeed."

Twice she tried to speak, but was mute; and then, "No hope?" she said, more to sight than to hearing.

He put his hand kindly on her shoulder. "It would be wrong of me to encourage it," he said. "As for what I can do, it is all over. . . . But you must bear up," he went on firmly, as, guided to a chair, she bent forward and covered her face. "Drink this--" He took a small bottle from his bag, poured something into a cup and added water. "Drink it--drink it up; all of it. . . . I must go. . . . You've your children to think of, remember. Come to your mother, my boy. . . . "

He was gone, and the children stood with their arms about their mother. The old man's breathing, which had grown heavier and louder still, presently eased again, and his eyes closed drowsily. At this the woman looked up with an impossible hope in her heart. Truly, the breath was soft and natural, and the drawn lines had gone from the face: he must be sleeping. Why had she not thought to ask Bob Smallpiece to carry him up to bed? And why had the doctor not ordered it? Softly she turned the wet cloth that lay over the wound.

The breath grew lighter and still lighter, and more peaceful the face, till one might almost trace a smile. Quieter and quieter, and still more peaceful: till all was peace indeed.

VI.

BOB SMALLPIECE and a police-inspector busied themselves that night at Wormleyton Pits. The pits were none of them deep--six feet at most. At the bottom of the deepest they found old May's lantern, with the glass broken and the candle overrun and extinguished; and the gravel was spotted with marks which, in the clearer light of the morning, were seen to be marks of blood. It was useless to look for foot-prints. The ground was dry, and, except in the pits themselves, it was covered with heather, whereon no such traces were possible. And this was all the police had to say at the inquest, whereat the jury gave a verdict of Accidental Death. For the old man had died, as was medically certified after post-mortem examination, of brain-laceration produced by fracture of the base of the skull; and the fracture was caused by percussion from a blow on the upper part of the head--a blow probably suffered by falling backward into the pit and striking the head against a large stone embedded at the bottom. Everything suggested such an explanation. Above the steepest wall of the pit, over which the fall must have chanced, a narrow ledge of ground ran between the brink and a close clump of bramble and bush; and this ledge was grown thick with tough heather, as apt, almost, as a tangle of wire, to catch the foot and cause a stumble. It was plain that, stooping to his occupation on this ledge, and perhaps forgetting his situation in the interest of his search, he had fallen backward into the pit with the lantern. He had probably lain there insensible for some while, and then, developing a crazed half-consciousness, he had crawled out by the easy slope at the farther end, and staggered off whithersoever his disjointed faculties might carry him. Nobody had seen him but his grandson and the keeper; so that the verdict was a matter of course, and the dismal inquiry was soon done with. And indeed the jury knew all there was to know, unless it were a trivial matter, of some professional interest to Bob Smallpiece, about which the police preferred to have nothing said; since it could not help the jury, though it might chance, later, to be of some use to themselves. It was simply the fact that several very fresh peg-holes were observed about the pits, hinting a tearing away of rabbit-snares with no care to hide the marks.

* * * * *

The days were bad dreams to Johnny. He found himself continually repeating in his mind that gran'dad was dead, gran'dad was dead; as though he were forcing himself to learn a lesson that persistently slipped his memory. Well enough he knew it, and it puzzled him that he should find it so hard to believe, and, mostly, so easy a grief. As he woke in the morning the thought struck down his spirits, and then, with an instant revulsion, he doubted it was but the aftertaste of a dream. But there lay the empty half of the bed they were wont to share, and the lesson began again. He went about the house. Here was a sheet of gran'dad's list of trades, pinned to the wall, there the unfinished case of moths for which the customer was waiting. These, and the shelves, and the breeding-boxes--all were as parts of the old man, impossible to consider apart from his active, white-headed figure. In some odd, hopeless way they seemed to suggest that it was all right, and that gran'dad was simply in the garden, or upstairs, or in the backhouse, and presently would come in as usual and put them all to their daily uses. And it was only by dint of stern concentration of thought that Johnny forced on himself the assurance that the old man would come among his cases no more, nor ever again discuss with him the list of London trades. Then the full conviction struck him sorely, like a blow behind the neck: the heavy stroke of bereavement and the sick fear of the world for his mother and sister, together. But there--he was merely torturing himself. He took refuge in a curious callousness, that he could call back very easily when he would. So the days went, but with each new day the intermissions of full realisation grew longer: till plain grief persisted in a leaden ache, rarely broken by a spell of apathy.

His mother and his sister went about household duties silently, not often apart. They were comforted in companionship, it seemed, but solitude brought tears and heartbreak. Nan May's London upbringing caused her some thought of what her acquaintances there would have called a "proper" funeral. But here the machinery of such funerals must be brought from a distance, thus becoming doubly expensive; and this being the case, cottagers made very little emulation at such times, and a walking funeral--perhaps at best a cab from the rank at Loughton station--satisfied most. Moreover, the old man himself had many a time preached strong disapproval of money wasted on funerals; had, indeed, prophesied that if any costliness were wasted on him, he would rise from his coffin and kick a mute. So now that the time had come, a Theydon carpenter made the coffin, and a cab from Loughton was the whole show. The old man's relations were not, and of Nan May's most still alive were forgotten; for in the forest cottage the little family had been secluded from such connections, as by sundering seas. At first they had seemed too near for correspondence, and then they had been found too far for visiting. Uncle Isaac came to the funeral, however; and though in the beginning he seemed prepared for solemn declamation, something in the sober grief at the cottage made him unwontedly quiet.

It was a short coffin, accommodated under the cabman's seat with no great protrusion at the ends; what there was being covered decently with a black cloth. And the cab held the mourners easily: Johnny and Bessy in their Sunday clothes, their mother in hers (they had always been black since she was first a widow) and Uncle Isaac in a creasy suit of lustrous black, oddly bunched and wrinkled at the seams: the conventional Sunday suit of his generation of artisans, folded carefully and long preserved, and designed to be available alike for church and for such funerals as might come to pass.

A brisk wind stirred the trees, and flung showers of fallen leaves after the shabby old four-wheeler as it climbed the lanes that led up to the little churchyard; where the sexton and his odd man waited with planks and ropes by the new-dug grave. It was a bright afternoon, but a fresh chill in the wind hinted the coming of winter. A belated Red Admiral seemed to chase the cab, fluttering this way or that, now by one window, now by the other, and again away over the hedge-top. Nothing was said. Now and again Johnny took his eyes from the open window to look at his companions. His mother, opposite, sat, pale and worn, with her hands in her lap, and gazed blankly over his head at the front window of the cab. She was commonly a woman of healthy skin and colour, but now the skin seemed coarser, and there was no colour but the pink about her red eyelids. Uncle Isaac, next her, sat forward, and rubbed his chin over and round the knob of his walking stick, a bamboo topped with a "Turk's head" of tarred cord. As for Bessy, sitting at the far end of his own seat, Johnny saw nothing of her face for her handkerchief and the crutch-handle. But she was very quiet, and he scarcely thought she was crying. For himself, he was sad enough, in a heavy way, but in no danger of tears; and he turned again, and looked out of the window.

At last the cab stopped at the lych gate. Here Bob Smallpiece unexpectedly appeared, to lend a hand with the coffin. So that with the sexton, and the carpenter who was the undertaker, Uncle Isaac, and the keeper, the cabman's help was not wanted. The cabman lingered a moment, to shift cloths and aprons, and to throw a glance or two after the little company as it followed the clergyman, and then he hastened to climb to his seat and drive after a young couple that he spied walking in the main road; for they were strangers, and looked a likely fare back to the station.

Johnny found church much as it was on Sunday, except that to-day they sat near the front, and that he was conscious of a faint sense of family importance by reason of the special service, and the coffin so conspicuously displayed. A few neighbours--women mostly--were there, too; and when the coffin was carried out to the grave, they grouped themselves a little way off in the background, with Bob Smallpiece farther back still.

From the grave's edge one looked down over the country-side, green and hilly, and marked out in meadows by rows of elms, with hedges at foot. The wind came up briskly and set the dead leaves going again and again, chasing them among the tombs and casting them into the new red grave. Bessy was quiet no longer, but sobbed aloud, and Nan May took no more care to dry her eyes. Johnny made an effort that brought him near to choking, and then another; and then he fixed his attention on the cows in a meadow below, counted them with brimming eyes, and named them (for he knew them well) as accurately as the distance would let him. He would scarce trust himself to take a last look, with the others, at the coffin below and its bright tin plate, but fell straightway to watching a man mending thatch on a barn, and wondering that he wore neither coat nor waistcoat in such a fresh wind. And so, except for a stray tear or two, which nobody saw overflow from the brimming eyes, he faced it out, and walked away with the others under the curious gaze of the neighbours, who lined up by the path. And Smallpiece went off in the opposite direction with the carpenter, who carried back the pall folded over his arm, like a cloak.

The four mourners walked back by the lanes, in silence. Uncle Isaac bore the restraint with difficulty, and glanced uneasily at Nan May's face from time to time, as though he were watching an opportunity to expound his sentiments at length. But Johnny saw nothing of this, for affliction was upon him. Now that gran'dad was passed away indeed--was buried, and the clods were rising quickly over him--now that even the coffin was gone from the cottage, and would never be seen again--it seemed that he had never understood before, and he awoke to the full bitterness of things. More, his effort at restraint was spent, and in the revulsion he found he could hold in no longer. He peeped into the thickets by the lane-side as he went, questing for an excuse to drop behind. Seeing no other, he stooped and feigned to tie his bootlace; calling, in a voice that quavered absurdly in trying to seem indifferent, "Go on, mother, I'm comin' presently!"

He dashed among the bushes, flung himself on the grass, and burst into a blind fury of tears, writhing as though under a shower of stinging blows. He had meant to cry quietly, but all was past control, and any might hear that chanced by. He scarce knew whether the fit had endured for seconds, minutes, or hours, when he was aware of his mother, sitting beside him and pressing his bursting head to her breast. Bessy was there too, and his mother's arms were round both alike.

With that he grew quieter and quieter still. "We mustn't break down, Johnny boy--there's hard struggles before us," his mother said, smoothing back his hair. "An' you must be very good to me, Johnny, you're the man now!"

He kissed her, and brushed the last of his tears away. "Yes, mother, I will," he said. He rose, calmer, awake to new responsibilities, and felt a man indeed. Nothing remained of his outbreak but a chance-coming shudder in the breath, and, as he helped Bessy to her feet, he saw, five yards off, among the bushes, Uncle Isaac, under his very tall hat, gazing blankly at the group, and gently rubbing the Turk's head on his stick among the loose grey whiskers that bordered his large face.

VII.

NAN MAY rose another woman in the morning; for there was work before her. The children marvelled to see her so calm and so busy, so full of thought for the business in hand, so little occupied with sorrowful remembrance. The old man, prudent ever, had arranged years since for what had now befallen. There was a simple little will on a sheet of notepaper. There was a great and complicated list, on odd scraps of paper, thickly beset with additions, alterations, and crossings-out, of the "specimens" hoarded in the cottage; with pencil notes of values, each revised a dozen times, as the market changed. There was a Post-Office Savings Bank deposit book, with entries amounting to eight pounds ten, and a nomination form whereby Nan May might withdraw the money. There was no life-insurance, for the old man had surrendered it years ago, to secure the few pounds he needed to make up the full price of the cottage.