We must conclude he is the worst.
He is the worst.
Therefore.
2
Twilight was moving through the woods upon the fields when the Reverend Jethro Furber, pebbles in his shoes, sand pushing between his toes, limped down the River Road to Henry Pimber's house. Trees divided the pale sheet of water on his left, while on his right loomed a bank of darkness like a battlement. The air was quiet, there was cloud, and all the sounds that human silence sharpens were, unearthly, stopped. The house seemed a deep extension of the trees, and Furber began to wonder what fool conceit or cowardice had driven him. He decided it was both: there was cowardice in his coming at all; there was conceit, certainly, in the melodrama of the moment he had chosen. Now and then the moon appeared and bleached a path across the road. He heard a horse, and far away, perhaps in town, a lonely bark. The pebbles pressed against the bottoms of his feet. It had been a delicious pair of pains at first but now it made him wobble awkwardly. Madame, the clergy has come to calclass="underline" give greeting. He looked about. The long lane was silent. The Holy Spirit has no better emissary: loose loud hurrahs. His mouth twisted sourly as he heard himself. Furber turned past the forsythia, wading in a trench of shade to penetrate the darkness that lay beyond the lilacs, and soon he reached the steps where he could see the neighborly gift of Mrs. Gladys Chamlay glimmering quietly in the moonlight and groaning from neglect. Though its shining is silent, there's speech in the spoiling. Furber considered whether this expression was worth recording and decided against it. He raised the napkin covering the picnic basket and in the moonlight ants splashed like pepper past his feet. Leaning shame against fear, he removed one shoe at last, and in the moonlight emptied it of sand and stones, roughly dusting his sock. Since the leather had a tendency to wad, he shoved his foot back through the shoe's high neck with difficulty. He then drew from the other an easing stream. Both feet' comfortably shod again, he tromped noisily across the porch and pounded on the door, startling a bird which rose angrily from its bush. Twice he called her name, then waited, feeling absurd. The aches in his feet were subsiding. He felt he ought to stop and tie his shoes, but he had compunctions about kneeling. In the morning he'd have more than a bruise. Attempting to listen, he went carefully down the steps and quickly toward the back of the house. In that moment the resting branches turned their leaves. Brilliantly, the still grass glittered. He found the side door locked, the rear door bolted. The cellar door seemed hooked. Ineffectually, he tugged and hauled at windows, beginning to wheeze. His heels were rising in his shoes, the laces slapping. Nor could he tolerate the funk he was in. Were there goblins in the gumtrees, ghosts in the cupboards? He had no fear of spirits surely — of brooming witches, of gnomes, elves, sprites. Bear in mind: hate finds nothing hard. He ought to make a note of that. Nevertheless he could not ignore the figure he was cutting. Distraught, he wandered aimlessly about until he stumbled on a stick which, when he discovered what it was, he seized in a fury, attacking the house. By prying with it, he made a window squeak. Next he balanced a rock on a box and stood on these, the better to shove and heave. Yes indeed, he was an accomplished comedian and entrancing equilibrist, favorite of queens. At last he was able to squeeze inside. Something fell as he entered. Whatever it was, it did not break, but rolled slowly across the floor: a-runk, a-runk, a-runk. He couldn't remember how the furniture was arranged or where in the house he was. The children who had spied on her, as he'd been told, claimed she roamed the building with a lamp, but the place was cold, the air unstirred, the darkness unrelieved. He sneezed — curtain across his face. Now where are you, Lucy, he yelled, ashamed of the quaver in his voice. But he might come on her corpse. Swimming in the dark, he might bump it with his nose, or his foot might crush its fingers. Then Henry's head might moon, his fierce eyes stare, the covers close about his neck like foam, and Furber would hear his own voice singing die in a relentless monotone — die die die. He turned back to the window, terrified, bumping a chair which slid on the unrugged floor. Above him, on what he later decided were the back stairs, a figure appeared wrapped in gauze, holding a faintly burning lamp. Sagging. Furber uttered an uncourageous groan. Backett, is that you, Lucy Pimber said in a whisper.