Wastralls: A Novel

by C. A. Dawson Scott

As the signal was given to lower the coffin into the grave, out of the clouded sky fell a quavering dazzle of sunlight, omen to these heavy anxious hearts of better times in store. It fell on the brass handles, the name-plate, and the two curving rows of cut clasps, scintillating from the bright surfaces in a myriad tiny glints. Byron, standing between Tom and Constantine Rosevear at the head of the grave, noticed it, as did the others; and to him it was not only sunshine falling unexpectedly on a coffin but something personal to himself.

He had gone mechanically through the service, had glanced with disfavour at the wreaths and harps and other floral sacrifices, had even in his heart made ribald comment on 'Peace, Perfect Peace, with loved ones far away.' The mood of exultation in which he had left Wastralls had changed to one of slowly mounting irritation. This burying was after all a tedious business. The creak and strain of the ropes which indicated that the coffin was being let down drew from him a sigh of relief. In another minute he would be able to turn his back on this place of sepulture.

The flash of sunlight, however, had caught his eye and had done more than that. Its transient gleam had linked the fleeting sense of familiarity he had felt, when the coffin had been carried past him out of Wastralls, with other moments strung bead-like on the past. This was the shape, those the infinitesimal glimmers, which he had seen in visions. Again and again he had heard the hammer at work, seen the glint of polished wood, the curve of the cut clasps. The lid of Sabina's coffin! For years his dim familiar, it was now actual and present. He shivered as if a breath laden with the odours, the dank chill of the grave, had risen from its depths. That hammering—but it was not he who had knocked in nail after nail.

Byron forgot, in sudden curiosity, that curiosity with which the vision always inspired him, where he was and what he was doing. He must find out whether the lines had been completed to the last nail. Something of peculiar importance hung on this fact.

Con Rosevear, having moved a little, was now between him and the grave and, in the dark oblong, the coffin was sinking out of sight. A moment more and it would be too late. With one of the movements which, in a man of his age and bulk were so surprisingly quick, Byron thrust the other aside. The sun gleam had faded, the shadows of the wintry afternoon, the shadows of the pit were closing over the coffin. Byron, on the grassy verge, leaned forward in a perilous attempt to see and, to the bystanders, it seemed as if the man, driven crazy by grief, were about to throw himself into the grave. An emotional race, they were prepared for such manifestations but, even as they closed with Leadville, to pull him back into safety, they were conscious of surprise, of a new almost grudged respect. They had not thought him fond of his wife.

The sudden jerking of his arms, under the clutch of well-meaning but mistaken fingers, prevented Byron from satisfying himself as to whether the nails were all in place. This matter of the last nail had on a sudden assumed a terrible importance. If it had been hammered home he would be delivered from the obsession of this coffin which for so long he had seen in preparation. In the making of it he had had no part—and that was strange! Yes, all things considered it was very strange. He had never been able to think of his vision as an illusion. It was real and tangible but in some curious way out of reach. Now he had chanced upon it. Chance? He had been walking towards it all the time! He must know, however, whether the circles were complete, whether that last nail...

He flung off the arresting hands and made a further effort to see, but those busy with the ropes were using greater dispatch and others were thrusting themselves between the graveside and the man. His strength not being as the strength of ten he was forced to desist. Panting and wild-eyed, he stood debating with himself whether he would not make one more effort when Mrs. Tom, calling to him from behind, caught his attention.

"Come now," she said, thinking he must have been moved to this exhibition of feeling by a late remorse. "S'bina's gone and all the cryin' and grievin' in the world'll never get 'er back."

"S'bina?" he echoed and the eagerness faded from his face, leaving it curiously grey. "I wanted to see——"

He had turned his back on the grave and she noticed that his manner was preoccupied. "I wanted to make sure. Was..." he scanned her face with eyes which, as she said afterwards, should have warned her, "was the nails all drived in?"