Hosea smiled faintly.
They pulled out a thick, black wooden box about a foot square, and placed it on the mattress beside him; his eyes lit up as he saw it, and his fingers worked. He had been called a “near” man in his time, and the Vicar remembered that, as landlord of the Dipping-Pool, he had always had credit for being well off, in spite of the poor place he inhabited. When the lid was opened there proved to be nothing inside it but a stuff bag. The sight of it seemed to give Evans strength. “All notes,” he said, “a hundred pound an’ over. Count them.”
Mr. Lewis began to do so, Hosea’s sunken eyes following every movement of his lips. There was in bank notes one hundred and five pounds, and in coin fifteen shillings and tenpence.
“Now write,” said the innkeeper, “quick.”
It was not easy to find pen, ink and paper, and the woman was obliged to go out and borrow what was necessary from a more advanced neighbour; but when this had been done, the Vicar wrote out the simple sum of Hosea’s wishes. It was plain enough; everything he owned was to go to Mary Vaughan unreservedly. He was past writing, but he insisted on the pen being given him, and, with the doctor supporting him in his arms, he made a mark where Mr. Lewis had written his name. The two men witnessed it and added their own signatures.
“You are happier now that we have done that, are you not?” said Mr. Lewis. “You can trust me to see Mary Vaughan at once, and I will take care that what you want is carried out. It is right that you should do all you can for her. There is nothing else?”
“No,” said Hosea, though his eyes belied his words. “I’ve been a bad man,” he whispered, after a silence. “I suppose you can’t do nothin’ for me?”
“I can pray,” said the other, as he went down on his knees by the bed.
He began the commendatory prayer for the dying, and as his voice ran steadily on, the room grew very still. Only the cries and footsteps in the street outside broke the quiet. The doctor was kneeling too. The window-pane showed like a thing far away in a dream, a little blue square in the close-crowding walls that pressed upon Hosea’s dying eyes. The candle guttered and went out, and the Vicar finished his prayer in the dark.
When the last word was said, the doctor approached and struck a light. There was nothing left of the innkeeper but the poor, earthly husk that had clothed his imperfect soul, lying on the bed.