The Cross-Roads

　　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,

　　lobsided 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.