By the time Peter got there, Urquhart had lifted the burden from the old bent figure that lay face downwards. Gently he turned it over, and they looked on a thin old face gone grey with more than age.
"He can't be," said Urquhart. "He can't be. I didn't touch him."
Peter said nothing. His eyes rested on the broken end of a chestnut-stick protruding from the faggot, dangling loose by its bark. Urquhart's glance followed his.
"I see," said Urquhart quietly. "That did it. The lamp or something must have struck it and knocked him over. Poor old chap." Urquhart's hand shook over the still heart. Peter gave him the whisky flask. Two minutes passed. It was no good.
"His heart must have been bad," said Urquhart, and the soft tones of his pleasant voice were harsh and unsteady. "Shock, I suppose. How—how absolutely awful."
How absolutely incongruous, Peter was dully thinking. Urquhart and tragedy; Urquhart and death. It was that which blackened the radiant morning, not the mercifully abrupt cessation of a worn-out life. For Peter death had two sharply differentiated aspects—one of release to the tired and old, for whom the grasshopper was a burden; the other of an unthinkable blackness of tragedy—sheer sharp loss that knew no compensation. It was not with this bitter face that death had stepped into their lives on this clear morning. One could imagine that weary figure glad to end his wayfaring so; one could even imagine those steps to death deliberately taken; and one did imagine those he left behind him accepting his peace as theirs.
Peter said, "It wasn't your fault. It was his doing—poor chap."
The uncertain quaver in his voice brought Urquhart's eyes for a moment upon his face, that was always pale and was now the colour of putty.
"You're ill, aren't you?... I met Stephen.... I was coming back anyhow; I knew you weren't fit to walk."
He muttered it absently, frowning down on the other greyer face in the grey dust. Again his hand unsteadily groped over the still heart, and lay there for a moment.