CHAPTER XIII
At the approach of another Christmas, Humphrey Baskerville stood in the churchyard of St. Edward's and watched two masons lodge the stone that he had raised to his brother Nathan. It conformed to the usual pattern of the Baskerville memorials, and was of slate. The lettering had been cut deep and plain without addition of any ornament. The accidental severity and simplicity of the stone contrasted to advantage with Vivian's ornate and tasteless marble beside it.
Dennis Masterman walked across the churchyard presently and, seeing Humphrey, turned and approached.
"Good morning," he said. "Glad you've put a slate here. I like them better than these garish things. They are more suited to this grey Moor world of ours."
"'Tis a foolish waste to spend money on the dead," answered Mr. Baskerville. "When all the living be clothed and fed, then we can fling away our money over graves. 'Tis only done to please ourselves, not to please them."
"You've a right to speak," said the clergyman. "To praise you would be an impertinence; but as the priest of Him we both worship, I rejoice to think of what you have done to clear the clouded memory of this man."
Humphrey took no verbal notice of these remarks. He shrugged his shoulders and spoke of the gravestone.
"I'll thank you to read what I've put over him, and say whether 'tis not right and just."
The other obeyed. After particulars of Nathan's age and the date of his death, there followed only the first verse of the forty-first Psalm—
"Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord
will deliver him in time of trouble."
"You see," explained Mr. Baskerville, "my brother did consider the poor—and none else. That he made a botch of it, along of bad judgment and too much hope and too much trust in himself, is neither here nor there; for I hold his point of view was well-meaning though mistaken. If we see a man's point of view, it often leads—I won't say to mercy, for that's no business of ours in my opinion—but to the higher justice. To judge by results is worldly sense, but I'm doubtful if 'tis heavenly sense. Anyway, that's how I feel about my brother now, though 'twas only brought home to me after a year of thinking; and as for the end of the text, certainly that happened, because none can doubt the Lord delivered him in the time of trouble. His death was a deliverance, as every death must be, but none more than Nathan's afore the tempest broke."
Masterman—knowing as little as the other what Nathan's death had brought to Nathan of mental agony before the end—conceded these points freely. They walked together in the churchyard and spoke of moral topics and religious instruction. At a point in the enclosure, the younger stopped and indicated a space remote from the lodges of the silent people.
"You design to lie here—is it not so? Gollop, I remember, told me, a long time ago now."
The old man regarded the spot indifferently and shook his head.
"I meant it once—not now. We change our most fixed purposes under the battering of the world; and small enough our old thoughts often look, when seen again, after things have happened and years have passed. I'll creep to join my own, if you please. They won't mind, I reckon, if I sink into the pit beside 'em. I'll go by my wife and my son and my brothers. We'll all rise and brave the Trump together, as well as erring man may."
The stone was set in its place presently and Mr. Baskerville, well pleased with the result, set off homeward. His tethered pony stood at the gate, and he mounted and went slowly up the hill.