“Possibly. We’ve got to chance it. ‘Come into the garden, Maud,’” chanted the scientist.
Sedgwick started. “I thought we were going to motor somewhere. What about the garden?”
“About the garden? Why, somewhere about the garden there must be, I should guess, certain implements which we need in our enterprise.” He executed a solemn dance-step upon the floor and warbled,
“‘Oh, a pickax and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet!’”
A sudden thought struck cold into the heart of Sedgwick. “Be sensible, can’t you?” he exclaimed. “What do you want with a pickax and spade!”
“My wants are few and small. If you haven’t a pick, two spades will do. In fact, they’ll be better. I was merely sticking to the text of my Hamlet.”
His shoulders slumped, his jaw slackened, and, as his figure warped into the pose of the gravedigger he wheezed out the couplet again. The cold thought froze around Sedgwick’s heart. He visioned the wet soil of Annalaka burying-ground, heaped above a loose-hasped pine box, within which went forward the unthinkable processes of earth reclaiming its own.
“Good God! Is it that?” he muttered.
The mummer straightened up. “In plain prose, do you possess two spades?” he inquired.
Speechless, Sedgwick went out into the dark, presently returning with the tools. Kent took them out and disposed them in the car.