The Reverend Francis Hayhoe remained beside the garden of dead flowers. He looked very sad; neither did Death appear merry; only Winnie, who, now that she was sure that no one would take away her flowers—that she meant to arrange in vases in Mr. Solly’s sitting-room the next day—was the happy one.
Mr. Hayhoe went to the dead flowers and bowed his head. Winnie thought that he wept.
“Why did you destroy them?” Mr. Hayhoe asked of Death, in a low tone. “Why have you made their fair faces blacker than darkness?”
Death pointed to the flowers that Winnie held.
“Those still live,” he said. “But ask the Earth, and she shall tell thee, that it is she which ought to mourn for the fall of so many that grow upon her. For out of her came all at the first, and out of her shall all others come, and, behold, they walk almost all into destruction, and a multitude of them is utterly rooted out. Who then should make more mourning than she, that hath lost so great a multitude? Not thou, who art sorry for these few.”
Mr. Hayhoe knelt beside the parched bed and prayed aloud:
“Are not the evils which are come to us sufficient? If thou forsake us, how much better had it been for us if we also had been burned like these flowers? For we are not better than they that died here.”
“You pray wisely,” said Death, looking at the work he had done. “And surely, did I need an excuse for my conduct, your words provide one. What folly is greater than pride, and what mortal dare be proud when the judgment pronounced upon all living things is that they must become dust and ashes?”
“But why,” asked Mr. Hayhoe, “should man, alone of all the creatures—vegetable or animal—be the mock of the firmament? Why should man, in all the universe, be the only living thing that is conscious of his irrevocable doom?”
“When God’s finger first stirred the pudding,” answered Death, with a smile, “He let a tear fall in by mistake, and the tear became man’s consciousness. Then, to preserve man from everlasting sorrow, He put Death in the pot.”
Mr. Hayhoe bowed reverently.
Winnie, who had not heeded a word of what was being said—for she knew that men will always talk some kind of nonsense—happened to look behind her and gave a little scream.
“The Shelton policeman be coming,” she cried, “whose name be Jimmy, and he be staring up at the top of the box-hedge.”
“Come,” said Mr. Hayhoe. “I think we had better leave this garden by another way.” He began to run.
Death and Winnie followed. Mr. Hayhoe, who appeared to know the way, led them down a secluded path that grew more and more wild and less garden-like as they went on. Presently they came to a broken wall which they easily climbed, and were safe in the open fields.
“I thought I should remember the way,” said Mr. Hayhoe, panting a little, “for I used, as a boy, to stay at Madder with my godmother, Mr. Solly’s aunt, and sometimes I would climb over this wall, creep into the gardens, and take a few plums.”
Death laughed loudly.
“Ha!” he cried, “then Winnie and I are not the only ones who take what is not our own. And I wonder much that Lord Bullman did not notice your nose as well as mine, for I think that they are much the same length.”
“I was wrong, of course,” replied Mr. Hayhoe, blushing, “but my godmother cured me of stealing by making me eat nothing but plum jam for the rest of my stay.”
They were now come to a pleasant field-path that led to Dodder, and that crossed, by the help of two stiles, the very lane in which Mr. Hayhoe had first met John Death.
Only a good man, into whose soul evil hath not entered, is able to look at the dreadful pit, that goes down deeper than the beginning of life, into which he must one day descend, and yet still view the golden colour of a child’s hair and the green beauty of the fields with untroubled joy.
Mr. Hayhoe watched Winnie with gladness. She ran here and there, picking moon-daisies. One moment she was in one place, and then in another; her legs danced her everywhere.
Mr. Hayhoe, thinking that Death still walked beside him, turned to speak to him, but found that he was not there.
Mr. Hayhoe shuddered.
Winnie ran to him and gave him her flowers to hold, for, besides the begonias, she had gathered nearly an armful of daisies.
“I am going to Madder tomorrow,” she said, proudly, “to wash Mr. Solly’s shirts.”
Mr. Hayhoe commended her industry.
“Oh, that bain’t nothing,” she cried, “for Mr. Solly do say that ’e didn’t let love into his cottage to be idle, but ’e do always light the copper fire and draw the water before I be come.”
Mr. Hayhoe nodded even more approvingly.
“And I am soon going to make a nut pie,” boasted Winnie, “and learn to paper a room—all blue and yellow—and cook an omelette—but nine years is a long time to wait for a wedding-cake!”
“I wish you joy when that day comes, Winnie,” said Mr. Hayhoe. “Have you loved him for long?”
“It has been coming on so gradually,” replied Winnie, “that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Madder.”
Mr. Hayhoe smiled.
“I am sure you will be happy,” he said hopefully.
“I am sure I shall,” answered Winnie, “for Mr. Solly promises to take me to church every Sunday, and his pew be only one step below where real ladies do sit.”
Mr. Hayhoe was meditating.
“Is it wrong to steal?” he asked of Winnie.
“Oh yes,” replied Winnie, hurriedly, taking the flowers into her own hands again, “it’s certainly very wicked.”
“Yes, I think it is,” said Mr. Hayhoe, sadly, “and yet, ever since I took those plums, I have longed to steal the peace of God.”
“Oh, that’s always given away,” answered Winnie.
“No,” said Mr. Hayhoe, “one has to steal that; one has to take His peace away by force. Whoever wants that peace must rob God of it, for it belongs to Him.”
“I would much rather rob Lord Bullman,” replied Winnie.
Mr. Hayhoe looked at her and smiled again.
They were now come into Dodder and were close to Joseph Bridle’s field. Coming near, they were surprised to see that Mr. Balliboy’s car had stopped exactly beside Joe’s field gate, and that all the occupants had dismounted and were gazing excitedly into the meadow. Mr. Balliboy alone stood aside, for he was telling Miss Sarah Bridle that he would always honour and love her, if she became his—to which she could only reply that she was but a poor creature and no true woman.
Mr. Balliboy kissed her hand, and she promised to be his animal.
“Something very strange has happened,” observed Joe Bridle to Mr. Hayhoe. “In the morning the field was bare, but now the grass is as long and as green as though it grew in the Dodder churchyard.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” cried Winnie Huddy, “it’s only John’s silly scythe that makes the grass grow so quickly. He is always telling me about that scythe of his. He says that the faster he cuts with it, the greener and better the grass grows up behind him.”
“The Lord created man of the earth,” said Mr. Hayhoe, “and turned him into it again.… For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal.”
“I would rather hear you read about Mr. Bingley than talk so,” said Winnie.
Mr. Hayhoe sighed deeply.
“Pride and Prejudice is finished,” he said.