The Treasure of Heaven Part 38

"And the only true thing about that hepitaph,"--continued Twitt, folding up the paper again and returning it to its former receptacle,--"is the words 'Here Lies.'"

Helmsley laughed, and Twitt laughed with him.

"Some folks 'as the curiousest ways o' wantin' theirselves remembered arter they're gone"--he went on--"An' others seems as if they don't care for no mem'ry at all 'cept in the 'arts o' their friends. Now there was Tom o' the Gleam, a kind o' gypsy rover in these parts, 'im as murdered a lord down at Blue Anchor this very year's July----"

Helmsley drew a quick breath.

"I know!" he said--"I was there!"

"So I've 'eerd say,"--responded Twitt sympathetically--"An' an awsome sight it must a' bin for ye! Mary Deane told us as 'ow ye'd bin ravin'

about Tom--an' m'appen likely it give ye a turn towards yer long sickness."

"I was there,"--said Helmsley, shuddering at the recollection--"I had stopped on the road to try and get a cheap night's lodging at the very inn where the murder took place--but--but there were two murders that day, and the _first_ one was the worst!"

"That's what I said at the time, an' that's what I've allus thought!"--declared Twitt--"Why that little 'Kiddie' child o' Tom's was the playfullest, prettiest little rogue ye'd see in a hundred mile or more! 'Oldin' out a posy o' flowers to a motor-car, poor little innercent! It might as well 'ave 'eld out flowers to the devil!--though my own opinion is as the devil 'imself wouldn't 'a ridden down a child.

But a motorin' lord o' these days is neither man nor beast nor devil,--'e's a somethin' altogether _on_human--_on_human out an' out,--a thing wi' goggles over his eyes an' no 'art in his body, which we aint iver seen in this poor old world afore. Thanks be to the Lord no motors can ever come into Weircombe,--they tears round an' round by another road, an' we neither sees, 'ears, nor smells 'em, for which I often sez to my wife--'O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands; serve the Lord with gladness an' come before His presence with a song!' An' she ups an'

sez--'Don't be blaspheemous, Twitt,--I'll tell parson'--an' I sez--'Tell 'im, old 'ooman, if ye likes!' An' when she tells 'im, 'e smiles nice an' kind, an' sez--'It's quite lawful, Mrs. Twitt, to quote Scriptural thanksgiving on all _necessary_ occasions!' E's a good little chap, our parson, but 'e's that weak on his chest an' ailing that 'e's goin' away this year to Madeira for rest and warm--an' a blessid old Timp'rance raskill's coming to take dooty in 'is place. Ah!--none of us Weircombe folk 'ill be very reg'lar church-goers while Mr. Arbroath's here."

Helmsley started slightly.

"Arbroath? I've seen that man."

'Ave ye? Well, ye 'aven't seen no beauty!" And Twitt gave vent to a chuckling laugh--"'E'll be startin' 'is 'Igh Jink purcessions an'

vestiments in our plain little church up yonder, an' by the Lord, 'e'll 'ave to purcess an' vestiment by 'isself, for Weircombe wont 'elp 'im.

We aint none of us 'Igh Jink folks."

"Is that your name for High Church?" asked Helmsley, amused.

"It is so, an' a very good name it be," declared Twitt, stoutly--"For if all the bobbins' an' sc.r.a.pins' an' crosses an' banners aint a sort o'

jinkin' Lord Mayor's show, then what be they? It's fair oaffish to bob to the east as them 'Igh Jinkers does, for we aint never told in the Gospels that th' Almighty 'olds that partikler quarter o' the wind as a place o' residence. The Lord's everywhere,--east, west, north, south,--why he's with us at this very minute!"--and Twitt raised his eyes piously to the heavens--"He's 'elpin' you an' me to draw the breath through our lungs--for if He didn't 'elp, we couldn't do it, that's certain. An' if He makes the sun to rise in the east, He makes it to sink in the west, an' there's no choice either way, an' we sez our prayers simple both times o' day, not to the sun at all, but to the Maker o' the sun, an' of everything else as we sees. No, no!--no 'Igh Jinks for me!--I don't want to bow to no East when I sees the Lord's no more east than He's west, an' no more in either place than He is here, close to me an' doin' more for me than I could iver do for myself. 'Igh Jinks is unchristin,--as unchristin as cremation, an' nothin's more unchristin than that!"

"Why, what makes you think so?" asked Helmsley, surprised.

"What makes me think so?" And Twitt drew himself up with a kind of reproachful dignity--"Now, old David, don't go for to say as _you_ don't think so too?"

"Cremation unchristian? Well, I can't say I've ever thought of it in that light,--it's supposed to be the cleanest way of getting rid of the dead----"

"Gettin' rid of the dead!"--echoed Twitt, almost scornfully--"That's what ye can never do! They'se everywhere, all about us, if we only had strong eyes enough to see 'em. An' cremation aint Christin. I'll tell ye for why,"--here he bent forward and tapped his two middle fingers slowly on Helmsley's chest to give weight to his words--"Look y'ere! Supposin'

our Lord's body 'ad been cremated, where would us all a' bin? Where would a' bin our 'sure an' certain 'ope' o' the resurrection?"

Helmsley was quite taken aback by this sudden proposition, which presented cremation in an entirely new light. But a moment's thought restored to him his old love of argument, and he at once replied:--

"Why, it would have been just the same as it is now, surely! If Christ was divine, he could have risen from burnt ashes as well as from a tomb."

"Out of a hurn?" demanded Twitt, persistently--"If our Lord's body 'ad bin burnt an' put in a hurn, an' the hurn 'ad bin took into the 'ouse o'

Pontis Pilate, an' sealed, an' _kept till now_? Eh? What d'ye say to that? I tell ye, David, there wouldn't a bin no savin' grace o'

Christ'anity at all! An' that's why I sez cremation is unchristin,--it's blaspheemous an' 'eethen. For our Lord plainly said to 'is disciples arter he came out o' the tomb--'Behold my hands and my feet,--handle me and see,'--an' to the doubtin' Thomas He said--'Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.' David, you mark my words!--them as 'as their bodies burnt in crematorums is just as dirty in their souls as they can be, an' they 'opes to burn all the blackness o' theirselves into nothingness an' never to rise no more, 'cos they'se afraid! They don't want to be laid in good old mother earth, which is the warm forcin' place o' the Lord for raisin' up 'uman souls as He raises up the blossoms in spring, an' all other things which do give Him grateful praise an' thanksgivin'! They gits theirselves burnt to ashes 'cos they don't _want_ to be raised up,--they'se never praised the Lord 'ere, an' they wouldn't know 'ow to do it _there_! But, mercy me!" concluded Twitt ruminatingly,--"I've seen orful queer things bred out of ashes!--beetles an' sich like reptiles,--an' I wouldn't much care to see the spechul stock as raises itself from the burnt bits of a liar!"

Helmsley hardly knew whether to smile or to look serious,--such quaint propositions as this old stonemason put forward on the subject of cremation were utterly novel to his experience. And while he yet stood under the little porch of Twitt's cottage, there came s.h.i.+vering up through the quiet autumnal air a slow thud of breaking waves.

"Tide's comin' in,"--said Twitt, after listening a minute or two--"An'

that minds me o' what I was goin' to tell ye about Tom o' the Gleam.

After the inkwist, the gypsies came forward an' claimed the bodies o'

Tom an' 'is Kiddie,--an' they was buried accordin' to Tom's own wish, which it seems 'e'd told one of 'is gypsy pals to see as was carried out whenever an' wheresoever 'e died. An' what sort of a buryin'd'ye think 'e 'ad?"

Helmsley shook his head in an expressed inability to imagine.

"'Twas out there,"--and Twitt pointed with one hand to the s.h.i.+ning expanse of the ocean--"The gypsies put 'im an' is Kiddie in a basket coffin which they made theirselves, an' covered it all over wi' garlands o' flowers an' green boughs, an' then fastened four great lumps o' lead to the four corners, an' rowed it out in a boat to about four or five miles from the sh.o.r.e, right near to the place where the moon at full 'makes a hole in the middle o' the sea,' as the children sez, and there they dropped it into the water. Then they sang a funeral song--an' by the Lord!--the sound o' that song crept into yer veins an' made yer blood run cold!--'twas enough to break a man's 'art, let alone a woman's, to 'ear them gypsy voices all in a chorus wailin' a farewell to the man an' the child in the sea,--an' the song floated up an' about, 'ere an' there an' everywhere, all over the land from Cleeve Abbey onnards, an' at Blue Anchor, so they sez, it was so awsome an' eerie that the people got out o' their beds, s.h.i.+verin', an' opened their windows to listen, an' when they listened they all fell a cryin' like children. An' it's no wonder the inn where poor Tom did his bad deed and died his bad death, is shut up for good, an' the people as kept it gone away--no one couldn't stay there arter that. Ay, ay!" and Twitt sighed profoundly--"Poor wild ne'er-do-weel Tom! He lies deep down enough now with the waves flowin' over 'im an' 'is little 'Kiddie' clasped tight in 'is arms. For they never separated 'em,--death 'ad locked 'em up too fast together for that. An' they're sleepin' peaceful,--an' there they'll sleep till--till 'the sea gives up its dead.'"

Helmsley could not speak,--he was too deeply moved. The sound of the in-coming tide grew fuller and more sonorous, and Twitt presently turned to look critically at the heaving waters.

"There's a cry in the sea to-day,"--he said,--"M'appen it'll be rough to-night."

They were silent again, till presently Helmsley roused himself from the brief melancholy abstraction into which he had been plunged by the story of Tom o' the Gleam's funeral.

"I think I'll go down on the sh.o.r.e for a bit,"--he said; "I like to get as close to the waves as I can when they're rolling in."

"Well, don't get too close,"--said Twitt, kindly--"We'll be havin' ye washed away if ye don't take care! There's onny an hour to tea-time, an'

Mary Deane's a punctooal 'ooman!"

"I shall not keep her waiting--never fear!" and Helmsley smiled as he said good-day, and jogged slowly along his favourite accustomed path to the beach. The way though rough, was not very steep, and it was becoming quite easy and familiar to him. He soon found himself on the firm brown sand sprinkled with a fringe of seaweed and sh.e.l.ls, and further adorned in various places with great rough boulders, picturesquely set up on end, like the naturally hewn memorials of great heroes pa.s.sed away.

Here, the ground being level, he could walk more quickly and with greater comfort than in the one little precipitous street of Weircombe, and he paced up and down, looking at the rising and falling hollows of the sea with wistful eyes that in their growing age and dimness had an intensely pathetic expression,--the expression one sometimes sees in the eyes of a dog who knows that its master is leaving it for an indefinite period.

"What a strange chaos of brain must be that of the suicide!" he thought--"Who, that can breathe the fresh air and watch the lights and shadows in the sky and on the waves, would really wish to leave the world, unless the mind had completely lost its balance! We have never seen anything more beautiful than this planet upon which we are born,--though there is a sub-consciousness in us which prophesies of yet greater beauty awaiting higher vision. The subconscious self! That is the scientist's new name for the Soul,--but the Soul is a better term.

Now my subconscious self--my Soul,--is lamenting the fact that it must leave life when it has just begun to learn how to live! I should like to be here and see what Mary will do when--when I am gone! Yet how do I know but that in very truth I shall be here?--or in some way be made aware of her actions? She has a character such as I never thought to find in any mortal woman,--strong, pure, tender,--and sincere!--ah, that sincerity of hers is like the very sunlight!--so bright and warm, and clean of all ulterior motive! And measured by a worldly estimate only--what is she? The daughter of a humble florist,--herself a mere mender of lace, and laundress of fine ladies' linen! And her sweet and honest eyes have never looked upon that rag-fair of nonsense we call 'society';--she never thinks of riches;--and yet she has refined and artistic taste enough to love the lace she mends, just for pure admiration of its beauty,--not because she herself desires to wear it, but because it represents the work and lives of others, and because it is in itself a miracle of design. I wonder if she ever notices how closely I watch her! I could draw from memory the shapely outline of her hand,--a white, smooth, well-kept hand, never allowed to remain soiled by all her various forms of domestic labour,--an expressive hand, indicating health and sanity, with that deep curve at the wrist, and the delicately shaped fingers which hold the needle so lightly and guide it so deftly through the intricacies of the riven lace, weaving a web of such fairy-like st.i.tches that the original texture seems never to have been broken. I have sat quiet for an hour or more studying her when she has thought me asleep in my chair by the fire,--and I have fancied that my life is something like the damaged fabric she is so carefully repairing,--holes and rents everywhere,--all the symmetry of design dropping to pieces,--the little garlands of roses and laurels snapped asunder,--and she, with her beautiful white hands is gently drawing the threads together and mending it,--for what purpose?--to what end?"

And here the involuntary action of some little brain-cell gave him the memory of certain lines in Browning's "Rabbi Ben Ezra":--

"Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage Life's struggle having so far reached its term; Thence shall I pa.s.s, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a G.o.d, though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon Take rest ere I be gone Once more on my adventures brave and new-- Fearless--and unperplexed When I wage battle next, What weapons to select, what armour to indue!"

He turned his eyes again to the sea just as a lovely light, pale golden and clear as topaz, opened suddenly in the sky, shedding a shower of luminant reflections on the waves. He drew a deep breath, and unconsciously straightened himself.

"When death comes it shall find me ready!" he said, half aloud;--and then stood, confronting the ethereal glory. The waves rolled in slowly and majestically one after the other, and broke at his feet in long wreaths of creamy foam,--and presently one or two light gusts of a rather chill wind warned him that he had best be returning homeward.

While he yet hesitated, a leaf of paper blew towards him, and danced about like a large erratic b.u.t.terfly, finally dropping just where the stick on which he leaned made a hole in the sand. He stooped and picked it up. It was covered with fine small handwriting, and before he could make any attempt to read it, a man sprang up from behind one of the rocky boulders close by, and hurried forward, raising his cap as he came.

"That's mine!" he said, quickly, with a pleasant smile--"It's a loose page from my notebook. Thank-you so much for saving it!"

Helmsley gave him the paper at once, with a courteous inclination of the head.

"I've been scribbling down here all day,"--proceeded the new comer--"And there's not been much wind till now. But"--and he glanced up and about him critically; "I think we shall have a puff of sou'wester to-night."

Helmsley looked at him with interest. He was a man of distinctive appearance,--tall, well-knit, and muscular, with a fine intellectual face and keen clear grey eyes. Not a very young man;--he seemed about thirty-eight or forty, perhaps more, for his dark hair was fairly sprinkled with silver. But his manner was irresistibly bright and genial, and it was impossible to meet his frank, open, almost boyish gaze, without a desire to know more of him, and an inclination to like him.

"Do you make the seash.o.r.e your study?" asked Helmsley, with a slight gesture towards the notebook into which the stranger was now carefully putting the strayed leaflet.

"Pretty much so!" and he laughed--"I've only got one room to live in--and it has to serve for both sleeping and eating--so I come out here to breathe and expand a bit." He paused, and then added gently--"May I give you my arm up to Miss Deane's cottage?"