Zita leaned over the sick man's face, and with the corner of her gaily figured and coloured kerchief wiped his brow. His mind was wandering. From silence and impatience of being spoken to and having to exert himself to speak, he had come to talk, and talk much, in rambling strains.
'Father, I've brought you some brandy from the van. Take a drop. It may revive you.'
She put a flask to his lips. He found a difficulty in swallowing, and turned his face away. He had raised his head to the flask with an effort; it sank back on his daughter's bosom.
'Dad, how wet your hair is!'
'Things ain't as they ort to be,' said the Cheap Jack sententiously. 'I've often turned the world over in my head and seed as the wrong side comes uppermost. Then I'm sure I was ordained to be a mimber o' parliament, but I never got a chance to rise to it. How I could ha' talked the electors over into believin' as black was white! How I could ha' made 'em a'most swallow anything and believe it was apricot jam! I could ha' told 'em lies enough to carry me to the top o' the poll by a thumping majority. It's lies does it, all the world over—leastways with the general public in England. It's lies sells damaged goods. It's lies as makes 'em turn their pockets out into your lap. It's lies as carries votes. It's lies as governs the land. The general public likes 'em. It loves 'em. They be as sweet and dear to the general public as thistles is to asses.'
Then he lay quiet, except only that he turned his head from side to side, as though looking at something.
'What is it, dad?'
'I thinks as I sees 'em—miles and miles, going right away into nothing at all.'
'What, father?'
'The hawthorn hedges in full bloom, white as snow—it's our own tea plantation, Zit, you know—touched up wi' sweepins. When the flowers fall, then the leaves will come, and there'll be profits. Assam, Congou, Kaisow, Darjeeling, Souchong—just what you like—and, in truth, hawthorn leaves and sweepins—all alike. There's profits—profits comin' in the leaves, Zit.'
A light sleet was falling, and it gleamed in the radiance of the lantern planted on the bank near the dying man's head.
'So you see, Zit,' he said, pointing into space, 'the thorn leaves be fallin'—scores o' thousands—and the green leaves will come and bring profits.'
'What you see is snow that is coming down, father.'
'No, Zit. It's the thorns sheddin' their white flowers to grow profits. Fall, fall, fall away, white leaves.'
He remained silent for a while, and then began to pluck at his daughter with the hand that clasped her waist.
'What is it, father?'
'I ain't easy.'
'Shall I lift your head higher?'
' 'Tain't that. It's in my mind, Zit.'
'What troubles you, dad?'
'That tin kettle wi' the hole in it. I've never stopped it. Put a bit o' cobbler's wax into the hole and some silverin' stuff over it, and you'll sell it quick off. Nobody won't find out till they comes to bile water in it.'
'I'll do that, father. Hush! I hear the horses coming.'
'I don't want to go wi' them. I hears singing.'
'It is the wind whistling.'
'No, Zit. It be the quiristers chanting in Ely. Do you hear their psalm?'
'No, we cannot hear them. They do not sing at night, and are also too distant.'
'But I does hear 'em singing beautiful, and this is the psalm they sing—"One pun' twelve—and hawthorn tea at four shillin'. There's profits."'
He was sinking. He weighed heavy on her bosom.
She stooped to his ear and whispered, 'Are you happy, father?'
'Happy? In course I be. One pun' twelve on them flails, and four shillin' on thorn leaves and sweepins—there's profits—profits—tremenjous!'
And he spoke no more.
CHAPTER VIII
MARK RUNHAM
NO sight in the Fens is so solemn, so touching, as a funeral. There are no graveyards in the Fens. There is no earth to which the dead can be committed—only peat, and this in dry weather is converted into dust, and in rain resolved into a quagmire. A body laid in it would be exposed by the March winds, soddened by the November rains.
Consequently the dead are conveyed, sometimes as many as nine miles, to the islets—to Ely, to Stuntney, or to Littleport, wherever there is a graveyard; and a graveyard can only be where there is an outcrop of blue clay. For a funeral, the largest cornwain is brought forth, and to it is harnessed a team of magnificent cart-horses, trimmed out with black favours.
In the waggon is placed the coffin, and round it on the wain-boards sit the mourners. The sorrowful journey takes long. The horses step along slowly, their unshod feet muffled in the dust or mire, and their tread is therefore noiseless. But their bells jingle, and now and then a sob breaks forth from one of the mourners.
Two waggons bearing dead men took the road to Ely. In one sat a single mourner, Zita; and this waggon preceded the other. The second was full, and was followed by a train of labourers who had been in the service of the deceased, and of acquaintances who had roistered or dealt with him.
A cold wind piped over the level, and rustled the harsh dun leaves of the rushes in the dykes. Royston crows in sable and white stalked the fields, dressed as though they also were mourners, but were uninvited, and kept at a distance from the train. Lines of black windmills radiated from every quarter of the heavens, as though they were mourners coming over the fens from the outermost limits to attend the obsequies of a true son of the marshland.
To the south-west stood up the isle of Ely, tufted with trees; and soaring above the trees, now wan against a sombre cloud, then dark against a shining sky, rose the mighty bulk of the minster, its size enhanced by contrast with the level uniformity of the country.
Although it cannot be said that no suspicion of foul play was entertained relative to the death of Jake Runham, yet nothing had transpired at the coroner's inquest that could in any way give it grounds on which to rest; nothing that could in the smallest degree implicate Drownlands.
Runham had drunk freely at the tavern at Ely, and he had ridden away 'fresh,' as a witness euphemistically termed it, implying that he was fuddled. He had started on his home journey with a single lantern, in itself likely to occasion an accident, for it vividly illumined one side of the way and unduly darkened the other. Some one in the tavern yard had commented on this, and had advised the extinction of the single light as more calculated to mislead than none at all.
Horse and man had been discovered in the water about a mile above the drove that led to Crumbland, his farm. Runham had been found with his legs entangled in the stirrups. Possibly, had he been able to disengage himself when falling, he might have escaped to land. Certainly the horse would have found its way out; but the weight of the rider had prevented the poor beast from reaching the bank. It was observed that Runham had gone into the canal on his right hand, and that the lantern had been slung to his left foot.
There were, it was noticed, contusions on the head and body of the deceased, but these were easily accounted for without recourse to the supposition of violence. At intervals in the course of the Lark piles were driven into the banks to protect them against the lighters, and horse and man might have been carried by the stream, or