Only the forage cap must have been lost in the convulsion, for the dead man was bareheaded.
'The poor old beggar!' said John, with a touch of natural feeling; 'I would give ten pounds if we hadn't chivvied him in the train!'
But there was no sentiment in the face of Morris as he gazed upon the dead. Gnawing his nails, with introverted eyes, his brow marked with the stamp of tragic indignation and tragic intellectual effort, he stood there silent. Here was a last injustice; he had been robbed while he was an orphan at school, he had been lashed to a decadent leather business, he had been saddled with Miss Hazeltine, his cousin had been defrauding him of the tontine, and he had borne all this, we might almost say, with dignity, and now they had gone and killed his uncle!
'Here!' he said suddenly, 'take his heels, we must get him into the woods. I'm not going to have anybody find this.'
'O, fudge!' said John, 'where's the use?'
'Do what I tell you,' spirted Morris, as he took the corpse by the shoulders. 'Am I to carry him myself?'
They were close upon the borders of the wood; in ten or twelve paces they were under cover; and a little further back, in a sandy clearing of the trees, they laid their burthen down, and stood and looked at it with loathing.
'What do you mean to do?' whispered John.
'Bury him, to be sure,' responded Morris, and he opened his pocket-knife and began feverishly to dig.
'You'll never make a hand of it with that,' objected the other.
'If you won't help me, you cowardly shirk,' screamed Morris, 'you can go to the devil!'
'It's the childishest folly,' said John; 'but no man shall call me a coward,' and he began to help his brother grudgingly.
The soil was sandy and light, but matted with the roots of the surrounding firs. Gorse tore their hands; and as they baled the sand from the grave, it was often discoloured with their blood. An hour passed of unremitting energy upon the part of Morris, of lukewarm help on that of John; and still the trench was barely nine inches in depth. Into this the body was rudely flung: sand was piled upon it, and then more sand must be dug, and gorse had to be cut to pile on that; and still from one end of the sordid mound a pair of feet projected and caught the light upon their patent-leather toes. But by this time the nerves of both were shaken; even Morris had enough of his grisly task; and they skulked off like animals into the thickest of the neighbouring covert.
'It's the best that we can do,' said Morris, sitting down.
'And now,' said John, 'perhaps you'll have the politeness to tell me what it's all about.'
'Upon my word,' cried Morris, 'if you do not understand for yourself, I almost despair of telling you.'
'O, of course it's some rot about the tontine,' returned the other. 'But it's the merest nonsense. We've lost it, and there's an end.'
'I tell you,' said Morris, 'Uncle Masterman is dead. I know it, there's a voice that tells me so.'
'Well, and so is Uncle Joseph,' said John.
'He's not dead, unless I choose,' returned Morris.
'And come to that,' cried John, 'if you're right, and Uncle Masterman's been dead ever so long, all we have to do is to tell the truth and expose Michael.'
'You seem to think Michael is a fool,' sneered Morris. 'Can't you understand he's been preparing this fraud for years? He has the whole thing ready: the nurse, the doctor, the undertaker, all bought, the certificate all ready but the date! Let him get wind of this business, and you mark my words, Uncle Masterman will die in two days and be buried in a week. But see here, Johnny; what Michael can do, I can do. If he plays a game of bluff, so can I. If his father is to live for ever, by God, so shall my uncle!'
'It's illegal, ain't it?' said John.
'A man must have SOME moral courage,' replied Morris with dignity.
'And then suppose you're wrong? Suppose Uncle Masterman's alive and kicking?'
'Well, even then,' responded the plotter, 'we are no worse off than we were before; in fact, we're better.