"Don't laugh at him," he said. "Be sorry for him. 'Tis no laughing matter. Fill up that hole and take down yonder slate at the far end of the Baskerville row, and put everything in order. Our graves be all brick."
He departed and Mr. Gollop walked off to the vicarage.
A difficult task awaited Nathan, but he courted it in hope of future advantage. He was terribly concerned for his brother and now designed to visit him. As yet Humphrey had seen nobody.
Vivian had called at Hawk House the day after Mark's death, but Mrs. Hacker had told him that her master was out. On inquiries as to his state, she had merely replied that he was not ill. He had directed that his son's body should remain at the church, and he had not visited Shaugh again or seen the dead since the night that Mark perished.
Now Nathan, secretly hoping that some better understanding between him and Humphrey might arise from this shattering grief, and himself suffering more than any man knew from the shock of it, hastened to visit his bereaved brother and acquaint him with the circumstances of the inquest.
Humphrey Baskerville was from home and Nathan, knowing his familiar haunt, proceeded to it. But first he asked Mrs. Hacker how her master fared.
The woman's eyes were stained with tears and her nerves unstrung.
"He bears it as only he can bear," she said. "You'd think he was a stone if you didn't know. Grinds on with his life—the Lord knows at what cost to himself. He lighted his pipe this morning. It went out again, I grant you; still it shows the nature of him, that he could light it. Not a word will he say about our dear blessed boy—done to death—that's what I call it—by that picture-faced bitch to Undershaugh."
"You mustn't talk like that, Susan. 'Twas not the girl's fault, but her cruel misfortune. Be honest, there's a good creature. She's suffered more than any but her mother knows. No, no, no—not Cora. The terrible truth is that Humphrey's self is responsible for all. If he'd met Mrs. Lintern's daughter in a kinder spirit, she'd never have feared to come into the family and never have thrown over poor Mark. But he terrified her to death nearly, and she felt a marriage with such a man's son could never come to good."
Mrs. Hacker was not following the argument. Her mind had suffered a deep excitation and shock, and she wandered from the present to the past.