“forasmuch as it hath pleased almighty god of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope—”
the clods fell; the familiar rite ended. there was a smell of earth and bruised grass. dinah thorn looked down into her husband’s grave; and her child of three, clutching tight his mother’s black-gloved hand, peeped fearfully into the abyss that had swallowed his father. suddenly the infant appeared to realize his loss, and howled with all his little heart.
anon every man went to his own house, while mr. lethbridge began to fill the grave. his friend the blacksmith had been one of the bearers. he, too, stayed behind; and now chugg lighted his pipe, and sat upon a tomb, and watched the sexton. once more they played the part of chorus.
“’tis a wonder to see you with the spade again.”
“as to that, i’m past it—have been these three year—but this particular job—well, somehow, p. 178jonas had got a feeling that he’d cussed the chap so often in life that he couldn’t dig his pit decent; an’ i be clever yet for such an old blid, so i comed out o’ my well-earned rest. can’t say as it hurt my mind to dig, though my rheumatics will smart for it come to-morrow.”
the earth dropped from the shovel, and the coffin beneath rumbled to the thud.
old lethbridge worked slowly, and stopped often to talk.
“’twas always said he’d got a careless way of throwing elms. an’ now an elm have throwed him. a great tree in widecombe park falled when he was looking t’other way, an’ a bough scat his brains out. an’ now he’m coffined in elm, an’ never good wood held a worse man.”
the blacksmith smoked and shook his head.
“yet the church feels no doubts of him. have ’e ever marked the cocksureness of the parsons? ’tis that i marvels at! ‘sure and sartain hope’ be the words. when they buried sam pridham, the poacher—him as beat his wife and drinked the boots an’ shoes off his children’s feet—parson was just so dead positive ’bout it as when he put away my old woman, who was a holy saint o’ god, bar her temper. how can us know that it have pleased the a’mighty to take to hisself the soul of this here amos thorn?”
p. 179“we can’t be sure, and for my part i ban’t,” said the other. “we know mighty little of any man except this: that king and tinker breed the same fashion o’ worms come they die. the chap down there was a liar, an’ he won dinah hannaford from my son by a wicked trick. he told her falsehoods—’twas this dust i’m covering with honest earth that made dust of my son’s life; an’, old as i am, i be glad to bury him. if ’tis wicked, then ’tis wicked; but, any way, ’tis true.”
“don’t puff an’ fret, my dear. he’m gone now, an’ ’tis very bad for you to be so hot at your age. he’ll get his proper payment. for that matter, he have got it.”
“i say us have no right to believe that god have took this man’s soul to hisself. it ban’t justice, an’ i won’t stomach it. nice company for the bettermost in heaven! the like of amos thorn—! tchut! i can’t onderstand it.”
“’tis a very difficult question, and best left alone,” said the blacksmith, uneasily. “it be quite enough to know there is such a place. i never much like to think about it.”
“us have more right to commit his soul to the dowl, an’ a lot more reason, too,” said the angry ancient. “do ’e think i’ve read an’ pondered the scriptures fifty years for nothing? the wages of sin be death; that’s a cast-iron, black-an’-white p. 180fact; and i’ll back the bible against the prayer-book any day of the week for money. if bible’s true, he’m lost.”
“the punishment do fall on his wife an’ child, come to think of it. he was cut off so sudden, an’ left no provision for ’em at all.”
“that’s the law and the prophets,” declared mr. lethbridge. “sins of the fathers be visited on the children—also pretty often on the widows, though they ban’t named by name.”
“where’s the justice of that, then? got you there!” cried the blacksmith, triumphantly.
“if you’ve got anybody, you’ve got the old testament,” answered the other, grimly, “an’ i’d advise you to call home your words again, an’ not flout the book o’ life in a graveyard. ’twon’t be for your good. an’ such things will turn the scale at judgement. the man was cut off, an’ ’tis the quality of punishment not to stop at the sinner, but to catch the innocent folk all around him—like measles or a fever do.”
“as a husband, it be generally granted he was a very good an’ proper man,” ventured mr. chugg.
“you can’t be a good husband and a bad man.”
“you’m so quick at words, there’s no being even with ye!”
p. 181then the blacksmith went his way, and his friend shouted after him:—
“justice be justice; an’ for my part i’ll always tell the truth, as i always have, whether it be to a man’s face or his coffin-lid.”
