The Three Brothers

by Eden Phillpotts

CHAPTER XII

Nathan Baskerville's bedroom faced the south. A text was nailed upon the wall over his head, and an old photograph of his father stood upon the mantelpiece. To right and left of this memorial appeared trinkets made of shells. A pair of old carriage lamps, precious from association, decorated either end of the mantelshelf. An old print of Niagara Falls, that his mother had valued, was nailed above it.

A white curtain covered the window, but there was no blind, for this man always welcomed daylight. On the window-ledge there languished a cactus in a pot. It was a gift under the will of an old dead woman who had tended it and cherished it for twenty years. One easy chair stood beside the bed, and on a table at hand were food and medicine.

Many came to see the dying man, and Humphrey Baskerville visited him twice or thrice in every week.

More than once Nathan had desired to speak of private matters to his brother, but now he lacked the courage, and soon all inclination to discuss mundane affairs departed from him.

There followed a feverish week, in which Nathan only desired to listen to religious conversation. Recorded promises of hope for the sinner were his penultimate interest on earth. He made use of a strange expression very often, and desired again and again to hear the Bible narrative that embraced it.

"'This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,'" he said to Humphrey and to many others. "I cling to that. It was spoken to a thief and a failure."

All strove to comfort him, but a great mental incubus haunted his declining hours. His old sanguine character seemed entirely to have perished; and its place was taken by spirits of darkness and of terror.

"'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,'" he said to Eliza Gollop, when she was alone with him. "If I'd marked that better, I might now have got beyond that stage and learned to love Him. But I'm in fear—my life hasn't took me further than that—all's fearful still."

"No need in your case, I hope, so far as mortal man can say," she answered. "'Tis natural to be uneasy when the journey's end falls in sight; and we all ought to be. But then comes Christ and casts out fear. You've a right, so far as man can say, to trust Him and fear nought."

"But man doesn't know. Yet He forgave the dying thief."

"He did so, though us have no right to say whether 'twas a bit of rare kindness in Him, or whether he made a practice of it. But for my part I steadfastly believe that He do forgive everything but the sin against the Holy Ghost. Of course, that's beyond His power, and would never do."

Mrs. Lintern spent much time at 'The White Thorn,' and since her visits relieved Eliza of work, she acquiesced in them, while reserving the right of private judgment. Priscilla and her children all saw the sufferer together more than once; and then came a day when Heathman, Cora, and Phyllis took their leave of him.

The young man then secreted his emotion and roamed for an hour alone upon the Moor; the girls felt it but little.

Cora declared afterwards to Phyllis that since this great confession had been made, her mind dimly remembered her tender youth and a man in it. This man she had regarded as her father.

All the children were deceived at an early age. They had, indeed, been led implicitly to suppose that their father died soon after the birth of Phyllis.

One last conversation with his brother, Humphrey long remembered. It was the final occasion on which Nathan seemed acutely conscious, and his uneasiness of mind clearly appeared.

They were alone, and the elder perceived that Nathan desired and yet feared to make some statement of a personal character. That he might ease the other's mind and open the way to any special conversation he desired, Mr. Baskerville uttered certain general speeches concerning their past, their parents, and the different characteristics of temperament that had belonged to Vivian and themselves.

"We were all as opposite as men can be, and looked at life opposite, and set ourselves to win opposite good from it. Who shall say which comes out best? On the whole, perhaps Vivian did. He died without a doubt. There are some men bound to be pretty happy through native stupidity and the lack of power to feel; and there are some men—mighty few—rise as high as happiness, and glimpse content by the riches of their native wisdom. I've found the real fools and the real wise men both seem to be happy. A small brain keeps a man cheerful as a bird, and a big one leads to what's higher than cheerfulness; but 'tis the middle bulk of us be so often miserable. We'm too witty to feed on the fool's pap of ignorance; and not witty enough to know the top of wisdom. I speak for myself in that; but you've been a happy, hopeful man all your days; so belike, after all, you're wiser than I granted you to be."

"Me wise! My God! Don't you say that. My happiness was a fool's happiness; my laughter a fool's laughter all the time. At least—not all the time; but at first. We do the mad things at the mad age, and after, when the bill comes in—to find us grown up and in our right minds—we curse Nature for not giving us the brains first and the powers afterwards. Man's days be a cruel knife in the hand of a child. Too often the heedless wretch cuts hisself afore he's learned how to handle it, and carries the scar for ever."

"True for you. Nature's a terrible poor master, as I've always said, and always shall. We know it; but who stands up between a young man and his youth to protect him therefrom? We old blids see 'em thinking the same vain things, and doing the same vain things, and burning their fingers and scorching their hearts at the same vain fires; and we look on and grin, like the idiots we are, and make no effort to help 'em. Not you, though—not you. You was always the young man's friend. You never was a young man yourself exactly. An old head on young shoulders you always carried; and so did I."

"Don't think it—not of me. 'Tisn't so. No man was madder than me; none was crueller; none committed worse sins for others' backs to bear. The best that any man will be able to say of me a month after I'm in my grave is that I meant well. And maybe not many will even say that. Death's no evil to me, Humphrey, but dying now is a very cruel evil, I assure you. The cloud lies behind, not in front."

"So it does with every man struck down in the midst of his work. Shall you write your own verse according to our old custom?"

The other shook his head.

"No. I'll stick up no pious thought for men to spit upon when they pass my grave. I'd rather that no stone marked it. 'Twill be remembered—in one heart—and that's more than ever I'll deserve."

"Don't be downcast. Leave afterwards to me. I think better of you for hearing you talk like this. You tried to brace me against the death of my son; now I'll brace you against your own death. You don't fear the thing, and that's to the good. But, like all busy men, it finds you with a lot of threads tangled, I suppose. That's the fate of every one who tries to do other people's work besides his own, and takes off the shoulders of others what properly belongs there. They'll have to look to their own affairs all round when you go."

Nathan's answer was a groan, and with the return of the nurse, Humphrey went away.

From that hour the final phases of the illness began; suffering dimmed the patient's mind, and turned his thoughts away from everything but his own physical struggle between the intervals of sleep. His torments increased; his consciousness, flinging over all else, was reduced to its last earthly interest. He kept his eyes and his attention ceaselessly fixed upon one thing so long as his mind continued under his control.

Not grief at the past; not concern at the future; not the face of Priscilla, and not the touch of her hand absorbed his intelligence now; but the sight of a small bottle that held the anodyne to his misery. That he steadfastly regarded, and pointed impatiently to the clock upon the mantelpiece when the blessed hour of administration struck.

The medicine was guarded jealously by Eliza Gollop, and once, when frenzied at the man's sufferings, Priscilla had sought to administer a dose, the other woman came between and sharply rebuked her.

"It's death!" she whispered under her voice. "D'you want to murder him? He's taking just what the doctor allows—the utmost limit."

After three days of unutterable grief, Nathan's brother became aware of the situation, and perceived that the end tarried. He debated on this long-drawn horror for a night, and next day spoke to the doctor.

He put the case without evasion or obscurity, and the professional man heard him in patience and explained at once his deep sympathy and his utter powerlessness to do more.

"He's dying—you grant that?"

"Certainly, he's dying—the quicker the better now, poor fellow. The glands are involved, and the end must come tolerably soon."

"How long?"

"Impossible to say. A few days probably. He keeps his strength wonderfully well."

"But it would be better if he didn't? Wouldn't it be better if he died to-night?"

"Much—for all our sakes," admitted the physician.

"Can't you help him out of it, then?"

"Impossible."

"Why? You'd do as much for a horse or dog."

"My business is to prolong life, not hasten death. The profession recognises no interference of that sort."

"Who knows anything about it? A dying man dies, and there's an end."

"I cannot listen to you, Mr. Baskerville. We must think of the greatest good and the greatest safety to the greatest number. The law is very definite in this matter, and I have my profession to consider. You look at an individual case; the law looks at the larger question of what is convenient for a State. Your brother is having medicinal doses of morphia as often as it is possible to give them to him without danger to life."

"In fact, Nature must kill him her own hard way."

"Much is being done to lessen his pain."

"But a double dose of your physic would——"

"End his life."

"How?"

"He would become unconscious and in three, or possibly four, hours he would die."

"You'd call that murder?"

"That is the only name for it as the law stands."

"You won't do that?"

"No, Mr. Baskerville. I wish I could help him. But, in a word, I have no power to do so."

"Is it because you think 'twould be a wrong thing, or because you know 'tis unlawful?" asked the elder. "You might say 'twas impertinent to ask it, as it touches religion; but I'm ignorant and old, and want to know how it looks to the conscience of a learned man like you—you, that have been educated in all manner of deep subjects and the secrets of life."

The doctor reflected. He was experienced and efficient; but like many other professional men, he had refused his reason any entrance into the arcanum of his religious opinions. These were of the customary nebulous character, based on tradition, on convention, on the necessity for pleasing all in a general practice, on the murmur of a mother's voice in his childhood.

"I am a Christian," he said. "And I think it wrong to lessen by one moment the appointed life of any man."

"But not wrong to lengthen it?"

"That we cannot do."

"Then surely you cannot shorten it, either? Tell me this, sir: why would you poison a dog that's dying, so that its misery may be ended?"

"I will not argue about it. The cases are not parallel. Common humanity would, of course, put a period to the agony of any unconscious beast."

"But wouldn't free an immortal soul from its perishing dirt?"

"No. I am diminishing his pain enormously. I can do no more. Remember, Mr. Baskerville, that our Lord and Master healed the sick and restored the dead to life. He never shortened any man's days; He prolonged them."

"I'm answered," replied the elder. "Your conscience is—where it should be: on the side of the law. I'm answered; but I'm not convinced."

They parted, and Humphrey found the other's argument not strong enough to satisfy him. He wrestled with the problem for some time and ere long his impression grew into a conviction, his conviction ripened to a resolve.

In the afternoon of that day he returned to 'The White Thorn' and found Mrs. Lintern with his brother.

Eliza had gone out for a while. Nathan appeared to be half unconscious, but his mind clearly pursued some private train of thought.

Priscilla rose from her chair beside the bed and shook hands with Humphrey. Nathan spoke, but not to them.

"A mighty man of valour. His burning words melted the wax in a man's ears, I warn you.... Melted the wax in a man's ears.... Melted the wax.... Oh, Christ, help me! Isn't it time for the medicine yet?"

He stared at the bottle. It was placed on a bracket in his sight.

"What did the doctor say to-day?" asked Humphrey.

"Said it was wonderful—the strength. There's nothing to stop him living three or four days yet."

"D'you want him to?"

"My God, no! I'd—I'd do all a woman could do to end it."

Humphrey regarded her searchingly.

"Will he come to his consciousness again?"

"I asked the doctor the same question. He said he might, but it was doubtful."

The sick man groaned. Agony had long stamped its impress on his face.

"When is he to have the medicine?"

"When Miss Gollop comes back," she said. "There's an hour yet. The Lord knows what an hour is to me, watching. What must it be to him?"

"Why, it may be a lifetime to him—a whole lifetime of torment yet before he's gone," admitted Humphrey.

"I pray to God day and night to take him. If I could only bear it for him!"

Mr. Baskerville knelt beside his brother, spoke loudly, squeezed the sufferer's hand and tried to rouse him.

"My physic, Eliza, for your humanity, Eliza—the clock's struck—I heard it—I swear—oh, my merciful Maker, why can't I have it?"

He writhed in slow suffocation.

"I'll give him his medicine," said Humphrey. "This shan't go on."

"She'll make trouble if you do."

"I hope not, and it's no great matter if she does."

He crossed the room, examined the bottle, took it to the light and poured out rather more than a double dose. He crossed the room with it, heaved a long breath, steadied himself and then put his arm round his brother and lifted him.

"Here you are, Nat. You'll sleep awhile after this. 'Twill soon ease you."

Nathan Baskerville seized the glass like one perishing of thirst, and drank eagerly.

He continued to talk a little afterwards, but was swiftly easier. Presently the drug silenced him and he lay still.

Humphrey looked at his watch.

"I can tell you," he said. "Because you'll understand. His troubles are ended for ever now. He won't have another pang. I've taken it upon myself. You're a wise and patient woman. You've got other secrets. Better keep this with the rest."

He was excited. His forehead grew wet and he mopped it with the sheet of the bed.

Priscilla did not reply; but she went on her knees beside Nathan and listened.

"At six o'clock, or maybe a bit earlier, he'll stop. Till then he'll sleep in peace. When does Eliza Gollop come back?"

"After four."

"I'll wait then."

"You're a brave man. 'Tisn't many would do so much as that, even for a brother."

"Do as you would be done by covers it. 'Tis a disgrace to the living that dying men should suffer worse terror and pain than dying beasts. Terror they must, perhaps, since they can think; but pain—no need for that."

"I'll bless you for this to my own last day," she said. She rose then and fetched a chair. She held Nathan's hand. He was insensible and breathing faintly but easily.

Suddenly Mrs. Lintern got up and hastened across the room to the medicine bottle.

"We must think of that," she said.

"Leave it. He's had enough."

"He's had too much," she answered. "There's the danger. When that woman comes back she'll know to half a drop what's gone. She guessed the wish in me to do this very thing two days ago. She read it in my eyes, I believe. And God knows the will was in my heart; but I hadn't the courage."

"Let her find out."

"No—not her. Some—perhaps many—wouldn't matter; but not her."

Priscilla took the bottle, lifted it and let it fall upon the floor. It broke, and the medicine was spilled.

"There," she said. "That will answer the purpose. You had given him his dose and, putting the bottle back, it broke. I'll send Heathman off quick to Yelverton for another bottle, so it shall be here before the next dose is due. Then you won't be suspected."

He listened, and perceived how easily came the devious thought to her swift mind. It did not astonish him that she was skilled in the art to deceive.

"I've taken the chances—all of them," he said. "I've thought long about this. I needn't have told you to keep the secret, for it can't be kept. And I don't want it to be kept really. You can't hide it from the nurse. She'll know by the peace of poor Nat here how it is."

Priscilla looked again. Profound calm brooded over the busy man of Shaugh Prior. He was sinking out of life without one tremor.

"There's an awful side to it," the woman murmured.

"There was," he said. "The awfulness was to see Nature strangling him by inches. There's nought awful now, but the awfulness of all death. 'Tis meant to be an awful thing to the living—not to the dying."

For half an hour they sat silent. Then Priscilla lifted the clothes and put her hand to Nathan's feet.

"He's cold," she said.

"Cold or heat are all one to him now."

A little later Eliza Gollop returned. She came at the exact hour for administration of the medicine, and she sought the bottle before she took off her bonnet and cloak.

"Where—why——?" she cried out.

"I gave him his physic a bit ago," said Mr. Baskerville. "The bottle is broke."

The nurse hurried to her patient and examined him closely. She perceived the change.

"He's dying!" she said.

"So he was when you went away."

She broke off and panted into anger.

"You've—you've—this is murder—I won't stop in the house. I—oh, you wicked woman!"

She turned upon Mrs. Lintern and poured out a torrent of invective.

Then Humphrey took her by the shoulders and put her out of the room.

"You can go," he said. "You'll not be wanted any more."

She hastened from the inn and then went off to the vicarage as fast as her legs would carry her.

Another half-hour passed and none came to them. From time to time Priscilla put her ear to Nathan's face.

"I don't think he's breathing any more," she said.

Then came a noise and a grumbling of men's voices below. A violent strife of words clashed in the bar. The day had waned and it was growing dark.

"They'll be against you, I'm fearing," said Priscilla.

"'Tis of no account. They always are."

Presently Dennis Masterman entered the room.

"I hear poor Baskerville is going and they can't find his minister. Can I be of any comfort to him?"

He made no allusion to the things that he had heard, and Humphrey did not immediately answer him. He was leaning over his brother. Then he took out his watch, opened it, and put the polished inner case to Nathan's lips.

"Light a candle and bring it here," he said to Priscilla.

She obeyed, and he examined the polished metal.

"No stain—he's dead, I suppose."

Then Mr. Baskerville turned to the clergyman.

"If you can pray, I'll be glad for you to do it."

Dennis immediately knelt down; the old man also went slowly on his knees and the weeping woman did the same.

"O Almighty God, Who has been pleased to take our brother from his sufferings and liberate an immortal soul from mortal clay, be Thou beside him now, that he may pass over the dark river with his hand in his Saviour's, and enter as a good and faithful servant into the joy of his Lord. And support the sorrows of those who—who cared for him on earth, and help them and all men to profit by the lesson of his charity and lovingkindness and ready ear for the trouble of his fellow-creatures. Let us walk in the way that he walked, and pass in peace at the end as he has passed. And this we beg for the sake of our Mediator and Comforter, our Blessed Lord and Redeemer, Thy Son, Jesus Christ."

"Amen," said Mr. Baskerville, "and thank you."

He rose, cast one glance at the grief-stricken woman by the bed, then looked upon his brother and then prepared to depart.

But he returned for a moment.

"Will you do the rest?" he asked of Mrs. Lintern. "Or shall I tell 'em to send?"

"No, I daren't. Tell him to send. I must go home," she answered.

A loud noise persisted in the bar, but he did not enter it. He took his hat and an old umbrella from the corner of the sick-room, then descended and went out into the night.