A bullet through his heart at dawn. On the table a letter signed with a
woman's name. A wind that goes howling round the house, and weeping as
in shame. Cold November dawn peeping through the windows, cold dawn
creeping over the floor, creeping up his cold legs, creeping over his
cold body, creeping across his cold face. A glaze of thin yellow
sunlight on the staring eyes. Wind howling through bent branches. A
wind which never dies down. Howling, wailing. The gazing eyes glitter
in the sunlight. The lids are frozen open and the eyes glitter.


The thudding of a pick on hard earth. A spade grinding and crunching.
Overhead, branches writhing, winding, interlacing, unwinding,
scattering; tortured twinings, tossings, creakings. Wind flinging
branches apart, drawing them together, whispering and whining among
them. A waning, lopsided moon cutting through black clouds. A stream
of pebbles and earth and the empty spade gleams clear in the moonlight,
then is rammed again into the black earth. Tramping of feet. Men and
horses. Squeaking of wheels.

"Whoa! Ready, Jim?"

"All ready."

Something falls, settles, is still. Suicides have no coffin.

"Give us the stake, Jim. Now."

Pound! Pound!

"He'll never walk. Nailed to the ground."

An ash stick pierces his heart, if it buds the roots will hold him. He
is a part of the earth now, clay to clay. Overhead the branches sway,
and writhe, and twist in the wind. He'll never walk with a bullet in
his heart, and an ash stick nailing him to the cold, black ground.


Six months he lay still. Six months. And the water welled up in his
body, and soft blue spots chequered it. He lay still, for the ash stick
held him in place. Six months! Then her face came out of a mist of
green. Pink and white and frail like Dresden china, lilies-of-the-valley
at her breast, puce-coloured silk sheening about her. Under the young
green leaves, the horse at a foot-pace, the high yellow wheels of the
chaise scarcely turning, her face, rippling like grain a-blowing, under
her puce-coloured bonnet; and burning beside her, flaming within his
correct blue coat and brass buttons, is someone. What has dimmed the
sun? The horse steps on a rolling stone; a wind in the branches makes a
moan. The little leaves tremble and shake, turn and quake, over and
over, tearing their stems. There is a shower of young leaves, and a
sudden-sprung gale wails in the trees.

The yellow-wheeled chaise is rocking--rocking, and all the branches
are knocking--knocking. The sun in the sky is a flat, red plate, the
branches creak and grate. She screams and cowers, for the green foliage
is a lowering wave surging to smother her. But she sees nothing. The
stake holds firm. The body writhes, the body squirms. The blue spots
widen, the flesh tears, but the stake wears well in the deep, black
ground. It holds the body in the still, black ground.


Two years! The body has been in the ground two years. It is worn away;
it is clay to clay. Where the heart moulders, a greenish dust, the
stake is thrust. Late August it is, and night; a night flauntingly
jewelled with stars, a night of shooting stars and loud insect noises.
Down the road to Tilbury, silence--and the slow flapping of large
leaves. Down the road to Sutton, silence--and the darkness of
heavy-foliaged trees. Down the road to Wayfleet, silence--and the
whirring scrape of insects in the branches. Down the road to
Edgarstown, silence--and stars like stepping-stones in a pathway
overhead. It is very quiet at the cross-roads, and the sign-board
points the way down the four roads, endlessly points the way where
nobody wishes to go.

A horse is galloping, galloping up from Sutton. Shaking the wide, still
leaves as he goes under them. Striking sparks with his iron shoes;
silencing the katydids. Dr. Morgan riding to a child-birth over Tilbury
way; riding to deliver a woman of her first-born son. One o'clock from
Wayfleet bell tower, what a shower of shooting stars! And a breeze all
of a sudden, jarring the big leaves and making them jerk up and down.
Dr. Morgan's hat is blown from his head, the horse swerves, and curves
away from the sign-post. An oath--spurs--a blurring of grey mist. A
quick left twist, and the gelding is snorting and racing down the
Tilbury road with the wind dropping away behind him.

The stake has wrenched, the stake has started, the body, flesh from
flesh, has parted. But the bones hold tight, socket and ball, and
clamping them down in the hard, black ground is the stake, wedged
through ribs and spine. The bones may twist, and heave, and twine, but
the stake holds them still in line. The breeze goes down, and the round
stars shine, for the stake holds the fleshless bones in line.


Twenty years now! Twenty long years! The body has powdered itself
away; it is clay to clay. It is brown earth mingled with brown earth.
Only flaky bones remain, lain together so long they fit, although not
one bone is knit to another. The stake is there too, rotted through,
but upright still, and still piercing down between ribs and spine in a
straight line.

Yellow stillness is on the cross-roads, yellow stillness is on the
trees. The leaves hang drooping, wan. The four roads point four yellow
ways, saffron and gamboge ribbons to the gaze. A little swirl of dust
blows up Tilbury road, the wind which fans it has not strength to do
more; it ceases, and the dust settles down. A little whirl of wind
comes up Tilbury road. It brings a sound of wheels and feet. The wind
reels a moment and faints to nothing under the sign-post. Wind again,
wheels and feet louder. Wind again--again--again. A drop of rain,
flat into the dust. Drop!--Drop! Thick heavy raindrops, and a
shrieking wind bending the great trees and wrenching off their leaves.

Under the black sky, bowed and dripping with rain, up Tilbury road,
comes the procession. A funeral procession, bound for the graveyard at
Wayfleet. Feet and wheels--feet and wheels. And among them one who
is carried.

The bones in the deep, still earth shiver and pull. There is a quiver
through the rotted stake. Then stake and bones fall together in a
little puffing of dust.

Like meshes of linked steel the rain shuts down behind the procession,
now well along the Wayfleet road.

He wavers like smoke in the buffeting wind. His fingers blow out like
smoke, his head ripples in the gale. Under the sign-post, in the
pouring rain, he stands, and watches another quavering figure drifting
down the Wayfleet road. Then swiftly he streams after it. It flickers
among the trees. He licks out and winds about them. Over, under,
blown, contorted. Spindrift after spindrift; smoke following smoke.
There is a wailing through the trees, a wailing of fear, and after it
laughter--laughter--laughter, skirling up to the black sky.
Lightning jags over the funeral procession. A heavy clap of thunder.
Then darkness and rain, and the sound of feet and wheels.