Tired as he was, Coræbus had leaped back from the leading rein, then cast up his head and snorted, and with a glare of terror stood trembling. What John Rosedew saw at that moment was stamped on his heart for ever. Across his narrow homeward path, clear in the grey light, and seeming to creep, was the corpse of Clayton Nowell, laid upon its left side, with one hand to the heart, the wan face stark and spread on the ground, the body stretched by the final throe. The pale light wandered over it, and showed it only a shadow. John Rosedewʼs nerves were stout and strong, as of a man who has injured none; he had buried hundreds of fellow–men, after seeing them die; but, for the moment, he was struck with a mortal horror. Back he fell, and drove back his horse; he could not look at the dead manʼs eyes fixed intently upon him. One minute he stood shivering, and the ash–leaves shivered over him. He was conscious somehow of another presence which he could not perceive. Then he ran up, like a son of God, to what God had left of his brother. The glaze (as of ground glass) in the eyes, the smile that has swooned for ever, the scarlet of the lips turned out with the chalky rim of death, the bulge of the broad breast, never again to rise or fall in breathing—is there one of these changes we do not know, having seen them in our own dearest ones?
But a worse sight than of any dead man—dead, and gone home to his Father—met John Rosedewʼs quailing eyes, as he turned towards the opening. It was the sight of Cradock Nowell, clutching his gun with one hand, and clinging hard with the other, while he hung from the bank (which he had been leaping) as a winding–sheet hangs from a candle. The impulse of his leap had failed him, smitten back by horror; it was not in him to go back, nor to come one foot forward. The parson called him by his name, but he could not answer; only a shiver and a moan showed that he knew his baptism. The living was more startled, and more startling, than the dead.
CHAPTER XXI.
There was a little dog that crept and moaned by Claytonʼs body, a little dog that knew no better, never having been taught much. It was a small black Swedish spaniel, skilful only in woodcocks, and pretty well up to a snipe or two, but actually afraid of a pheasant on account of the dreadful noise he made. She knew not any more than the others why her name was “Wena”, and she was perfectly contented with it, though it must have been a corruption. The men said it ought to be “Winifred”; the maids, more romantic, “Rowena”; but very likely John Rosedew was right, being so strong in philology, when he maintained that the name was a syncopated form of “Wadstena”, and indicated her origin.
However, she knew her masterʼs name better than her own. You had only to say “Clayton”, anywhere or anywhen, and she would lift her tangled ears in a moment, jerk her little whisk of a tail, till you feared for its continuity, and trot about with a sprightly air, seeking all around for him. Now she was cuddled close into his bosom, moaning, and shivering, and licking him, staring wistfully at his eyes and the wound where the blood was welling. She would not let John Rosedew touch him, but snapped as he leaned over; and then she began to whimper softly, and nuzzle her head in closer. “Wena”, he said, in a very low voice—“pretty Wena, let me”. And then she understood that he meant well, and stood up, and watched him intently.
John knew in a moment that all was over between this world and Clayton Nowell. He had felt it from the first glance indeed, but could not keep hope from fluttering. Afterwards he had no idea what he did, or how he did it, but the impression left by that short gaze was as stern as the death it noted. Full in the throat was the ghastly wound, and the charge had passed out at the back of the neck, through the fatal grape–cluster. Though the bright hair flowed in a pool of blood, and the wreck of life was pitiful, the face looked calm and unwrung by anguish, yet firm and staunch, with the courage summoned to ward death rather than meet it.
John Rosedew, shy and diffident in so many little matters, was not a man to be dismayed when the soul is moving vehemently. Now he leaped straight to the one conclusion, fearful as it was.
“Holy God, have mercy on those we love so much! No accident is this, but a savage murder”.