"Mavis," he said, after supper that evening "I've noticed a branch at
the top of the walnut tree that doesn't look to me too safe. I must
lop that tree first chance I get--or we shall have an accident."
Next morning he was up and dressed before the sun rose, and he came
down-stairs very softly, carrying his boots in his hands, and pausing
now and then to listen. The house was quite silent, with no one
stirring yet except himself. He sat on the lowest step of the stairs
and put on his boots, listened again, then quietly let himself out of
the front door.
On the threshold the cool morning air rushed into his lungs, expanding
them widely, making him draw deep breaths merely for the pleasure of
tasting its freshness and sweetness. The light was still gray and dim,
and the buildings round the yard were vague and shadowy. In the garden
there was a delicious perfume of roses--those most beautiful of all
flowers pouring out their fragrant charms, although their glory of
color had not yet burst forth from the shadows of night.
Moving like a shadow himself, he hurried noiselessly to his work. One
of the shorter ladders would be long enough to reach the lower
branches, and he could climb from them as high as he wished. He
fetched the ladder from the yard, fixed it in position against the
walnut tree, and then went back to the yard for the other things he
wanted.
In the loft where the tools were kept he remained much longer than he
had intended. At first there was scarcely any light at all up here,
and, having stupidly forgotten to bring a box of matches, he had to
grope about fumblingly; but gradually the light improved. He found a
saw, and, attaching it to a light cord, slung it round his neck in the
approved woodman fashion. The saw would be carried merely for the sake
of appearances. Then he hunted for the particular rope that he
required for his purposes, and could not find it. He had seen it two
days ago, neatly rolled, in the corner with other tackle; but now the
corner was all untidy, a confused mass of cordage, and the good new
strong rope was concealing itself beneath weak old rubbish. He knew
that he could trust this rope, because it was the exact fellow of the
one on the pulleys--and with the pulley rope they let down loads that
were a good deal heavier than any man.
Then all at once a ray of light shot through a chink in the boarded
wall, and came like a straight rainbow across the dusty gray floor and
into the corner where he stood stooping. His rope was there right
enough, showing itself conspicuously, seeming to rise on its coils
like a snake and slip its sinuous neck into his hands, so that he had
picked it up and taken it from the corner before he knew what he was
doing.
It was necessary to arrange things with care, but he was a strangely
long time in making his running noose and satisfying himself that it
could not possibly give way or anyhow fail. He was also slow in making
a stop-knot at the part of the rope that he proposed to attach to the
tree, and he felt an extraordinary obtuseness of intelligence while
making the calculations that he had so many times thought out during
the night. "Yes," he said to himself, "twice the length of my arms.
That's quite right. Six feet is twice the length of my arms--but I'll
try it again. Yes--quite all right. Must be. That's a six foot drop.
That's what I decided--a six foot drop. The rope'll stand that. But it
mightn't stand more. An' less than six feet mightn't be enough either.
Yes, that's right."
Then he thought: "I am wasting time." He was conscious of an
imperative necessity for speed and a great danger in acting too
hurriedly; and a queer idea came to him that while in this loft he had
been having a series of cataleptic fits--sudden blanknesses, total
arrests of volition if not of consciousness, during which he had stood
still, listening or staring, but not doing anything to the rope.
He came down from the loft, and in the doorway below a flood of bright
sunlight dazzled him. The sun had risen, Some of Mavis' pigeons were
cooing gently on the granary roof, a horse in the stables began to
whinny, and two of the men came whistling round the outer barn into
the yard.
"Good mornin', sir."
"Good morning."
"Another nice day we are goin' to 'aarve, sir."
"Yes, looks like it."
Seeing his rope and saw, the men asked if there was a job on hand in
which they were to help; but he told them "No." He was only going to
take down a small branch out of the walnut tree, and he could do it
without any assistance.
Then the men went into the stables, and Dale passed through the
kitchen garden to the back of the house. Beneath the walnut tree he
slung the coiled rope over one shoulder and under the other arm; and
then he slowly ascended the ladder, saying to himself: "I am on the
steps of my scaffold. The scaffold steps. I am going up the scaffold
steps." From the top of the ladder he got upon a branch, and, putting
his arms about the stem, began to climb. "Yes," he said to himself,
"my gallows tree. I am going up the gallows tree. This is my gallows
tree;" and he climbed nimbly and firmly.
The green leaves were all round him, a green tent with pretty
loopholes through which he could take peeps at the home that was on
the point of vanishing forever from his eyes. He paused on a level
with the broad eaves, and looked through between branches at a window
on the first floor landing. The casements stood wide open; the square
of glass glittered; the muslin curtains just stirred, trembled
whitely. Far down below his feet were the flagged pathway, the wooden
bench, and three shining milk-pans.
He climbed higher; and it seemed to him that from the moment he left
the ground till now he had been like a drowsy man shaking off his
sloth, like a drugged man recovering consciousness, like a man who was
supposed to be dead rapidly coming to life again. With every inch
added to the height from the ground, he felt stronger, more active,
fuller of nervous and muscular energy. His fingers gripped each branch
as firmly as if they had been iron clamps; his feet, encumbered by
the stout boots, seemed to catch hold and cling to the slightest
irregularities of the smooth bark as skilfully and tenaciously as if
they had been the prehensile paws of a cat; not a touch of vertigo
troubled him; he felt as fearless and splendidly alive as when he
climbed tall trees for buzzards' eggs thirty-three years ago.
Soon he had climbed so high that he knew it would not be safe to climb
higher. He must stop here. At this point the main stem was still thick
enough to take the shock that in a minute he would give it. Above this
point it might not stand the strain. Besides, this was high enough for
appearances. He was within reach of the branch that had some decayed
wood at the top of it. Sitting astride a branch close to the stem, he
adjusted and fixed his rope, binding it round and round the stem and
over and under the branch, reefing it, making it taut and trim so that
no strain could loosen it; and all the while he was conscious of the
power in his arms and hands, the volume of air in his lungs, the flow
of blood in his veins, the nervous force bracing and hardening his
muscles. The rope was fast now. Now he assured himself that its free
length--the part from the tree to the noose--was absolutely correct as
to its amount. Nothing remained to do, nothing but to stand upon the
branch, fix the noose round his neck, and step off into the air.
Lightly and easily he changed his position, stood upon the branch,
holding the stem with his left hand, the noose with his right; and the
life in him pulsed and throbbed with furious strength. It tingled
through and through him, filled him as if he had been a battery
overstored with electricity, shot out at his extremities in lightning
flashes.
In this final position his head had emerged into a leafless space, so
that he could see in all directions; could look down at the house, at
that open window, the kitchen door, and the flagged path; could look
at the barn roofs, the rick-yard, the beehives; could look at his
fields, where the grass lay drying; or could look away at woodland, at
heath, at distant hill. He paused purposely to give himself one last
look round at all he was leaving.
Yes, here was the world--the bitterly sweet world, smiling once more
as it wakes from sleep. Looking down at it he felt an agony of regret.
How intolerably cruel his doom. Why should he of all mortals have been
made to suffer so? But God's law--his own law. Mentally he was
obeying, but physically he was in fierce revolt. Every fiber of him,
every drop of blood, every minute nerve-cell was crying out against
the execution.
The sunlight flowed across the fields in golden waves, the colors of
the flowers sprang out, the soft cool air was like a supremely
magnificent wine that could give old nerveless men the strength of
young giants; and the very marrow of his bones seemed to shrink and
scream for mercy. "Ought to 'a' done it at night," he said to himself.
"Mr. Bates didn't wait till daylight. In the dark--that's it. At the
prisons they give you a bonnet--extinguishing cap; high walls all
round you too; and they do it at the double quick--hoicked out of your
cell and pinioned in one movement, bundled through the shed, and begun
to dance before you can think. Darkness, the sound of a bell, and the
chaplain's whisper, 'Merciful Lord, receive this sinner.' And I've
heard say they stupefy 'em first, make 'em so drunk they don't know
where they are while they shove 'em into nowhere.... Very easy
compared with this set-out;" and he groaned. "O God, you've fairly put
top weight on me--and no mistake."
But he would have done it if he had not heard his daughter's voice.
Rachel had come to the open window, and she uttered a frightened cry
at sight of him perched high in the tree.
"Oh, dads, do take care!"
Next moment her mother came to the window; and they stood side by
side, each with a hand to her eyes, watching him in the same attitude
of anxiety.
"Don't speak to him," whispered Mavis; and Dale heard the whisper as
clearly as if it had been close against his ear.
He could not do it before them. He had been too slow about it; he
could not darken their lives with the visible horror of it. And it
seemed to him that he had not sufficiently thought of its effect upon
them. The whole thing had been clumsily planned. Just at first, when
he was found hanging dead with the saw dangling from his neck, it
might have been believed that he had slipped and fallen, and hanged
himself by accident; but afterward all would have known that it was
suicide. The truth would have been betrayed by the running noose, by
recollections of Mr. Bates, and by everybody's knowledge of an ancient
local custom.
"All right," he said. "Don't alarm yourselves, my dears. I must give
this job up, Mavis. I can't quite reach where I wanted to."
"Mind how you come down," said Mavis. "Do come down carefully."
"Yes, dads," said Rachel, "do _please_ come down carefully."
He climbed down slowly, feeling no joy in his respite, saying to
himself: "I must think of some other way. I must finish with the
hay-making, get the rick complete, and clear up everything in the
office--so's at least poor Mav'll find things all ship-shape when she
has to take over and manage without me. My hurry to get it through was
selfishness; for, after all, I've best part of three weeks to do it
in. The on'y real necessity is to have it done before Norah comes
home."
And again he thought of the finger of God. This clumsy hurried
execution had been refused by God. He was being pushed away, so that
the last glimpse of his eyes should not see the pleasant picture of
home.
He must do it privately, secretly, in a lonely spot; and he must spare
no pains, must plot and scheme till he contrived all the convincing
details of a likely accident. That was how he had killed Everard
Barradine; and he must arrange matters similarly for himself.