Coelebs. F. E. Mills Young
at the sight of Robert’s spade, which appeared out of the ground, it seemed, automatically and independently, ejected the freshly turned soil, and disappeared, to reappear with conscientious regularity in the performance of its appointed task. Robert himself was invisible; he was also, which was unusual, inaudible; the only sounds to be heard were those made by the spade and the falling earth.
The vicar stepped upon the grass and approached the open grave, looking about him with the perplexed air of a man whose locality is at fault. Finally he looked into the grave. Robert, perspiring freely, his flannel shirt open at the throat, looked up, and paused in his labours and rested upon his spade.
“You are a good twenty yards from the spot we marked,” said the vicar.
Robert wiped his brow with a red pocket-handkerchief, and nodded briefly. The vicar did not appear surprised. Unless he attended at the cutting of the sods, Robert, possessing no bump of locality, frequently overran his distances.
“I ought to ’a’ waited for you,” he said, and mopped his brow again. “Thought this was the place we fixed on. But I mind now it was nearer the old yew tree. I ought to ’a’ waited for you, sir,” he repeated, and looked, the vicar observed, perturbed. “I got wrong somehow.”
“Well, I suppose,” the vicar said, “this spot will serve as well as another.”
Robert spat upon his hands and grasped his spade, but he did not immediately use it. He gazed down into the grave resentfully, and then lifted his bearded face to Walter Errol’s, watching him from above.
“I ’eaved up a corpse,” he said.
And the vicar became abruptly aware of some bones lying partially covered with mould at the side of the grave.
“If it ’ad ’a’ been my first,” Robert proceeded, “it would ’a’ turned me up; but I’ve done it afore. It’ll be all right, though. I’ll get they old bones out o’ the way afore any o’ the mourners come along.”
“Treat them reverently, Robert,” the vicar said gravely.
“Oh, ay. I buried ’em first go off. I’ll fix they up all right.”
Robert spat on his hands again, and prepared to resume his labours.
“Old George been buried this thirty years too … Should ’a’ thought all trace of ’e ’ad gone,” he added in the tone of a man who feels justified in complaining at this want of consideration on the part of old George.
The vicar left him to finish his work, and repaired to the vicarage for the midday meal. This desecration of a grave troubled him more than it troubled Robert. It was not exactly Robert’s fault; he recognised that; though, had Robert been directly responsible, it was doubtful whether the vicar would have found it possible to rebuke the man seriously. Between his sexton and himself existed a mutual bond of affection which had begun from the hour when, as a young man taking over his first living, he had read himself in at Moresby during the lifetime of the old squire, in whose gift the living lay. Robert had constituted himself then director and guide of the new vicar. He had stood, or believed that he stood, as a safeguard between the vicar and the easily aroused displeasure of the irascible old squire.
Following the reading-in, he had drawn Walter Errol’s attention to the omission of rearranging the stand when he left the pulpit, the position of which the vicar had altered for his own convenience.
“Squire can’t abear to see en left askew. You’d get into a row over that,” he said. “Every vicar that ’as come ’as got into a row over thicky stand. I wouldn’t like you to get into a row wi’ squire first go off like, ’cause squire never forgets.”
Walter Errol, who possessed the saving grace of humour, had taken this advice in the spirit in which it was offered, and had thereby gained the sexton’s unswerving devotion.
“Have you been in a row with the squire, Robert?” he had asked.
“Yes, sir, never out o’ one,” Robert had answered, and had seemed to experience a peculiar satisfaction in making the avowal; as though to be in a row with squire conveyed a certain distinction on a man of humble origin. For the vicar to be in a row was, however, another thing.
The vicar, to Robert’s amazement, had kept on friendly terms with the squire to the day of the old man’s death, which to those who knew Walter Errol did not appear so surprising a matter as it did to Robert, familiar with the squire’s irascible temper, and accustomed to hearing himself spoken of as a very ignorant man. The vicar never called Robert ignorant; he showed, indeed, a very proper appreciation of his value; and, because to be appreciated is agreeable to every one, Robert returned in kind with loyal service and devotion. No man, whatever his status, can give more.
The vicar, as he sat at dinner with his wife, filled the sympathetic rôle of listener while she gave, with a certain quiet humour of her own, a graphic account of the meagre resources of her wardrobe. His own clothes also, she stated, were somewhat shabby.
“We shall look the typical country vicar and vicaress,” she said, with a most unclerical dimple coming into play when she smiled. “I hate dowdiness, Walter.”
“Can’t you get something made in the time?” he asked.
“No. I wouldn’t if I could. For one dinner! Imagine it! Why shouldn’t I look a country vicaress? That’s what I am.”
“You always look pretty,” he said, “and so do your clothes.”
“I believe,” she observed, with a fair imitation of John Musgrave’s tone and manner, “that I compare very favourably with other clergymen’s wives.”
He laughed.
“John considers you smart.”
“Oh, John?” She waved a small hand, as though she waved aside John’s opinion as of no account. “Was that man ever young, Walter?” she asked. “Somehow, I can never picture him as a boy.”
“No,” he said. “I can’t, either. When I knew him first he was an elderly young man with a predilection for botany. But I believe at heart he is one of the kindest and best of fellows, incapable of a mean action or thought. I admire John.”
She looked across at him, smiling.
“He suggests veal to me,” she said—“which possesses no nature, according to the butcher. When John matures I shall perhaps appreciate him better. He is new wine in an old bottle—the outside crusted, and the inside thin and bloodless.”
“New wine is apt to break old bottles,” he reminded her.
“I know,” she said. “I am waiting for John to break through his crust.”
Chapter Four.
The kitchen of John Musgrave’s establishment presented on Tuesday evening a scene of unusual activity. Martha, whose love for “Miss” Belle was even deeper than her affection for her master, was bent on doing her best for the honour of the house. It was an important occasion.
To Martha, as to all the old residents of Moresby, the Hall stood as the symbol of greatness, rather as Buckingham Palace might stand in the regard of the nation. Indeed, in local opinion it is possible that the Hall ranked above Buckingham Palace in importance, as tangible greatness surpasses legendary splendour. Moresby was accustomed to look with awe upon the Hall, which, since the reign of the old squire, had remained for the greater part of the time unoccupied, the present squire for private reasons preferring to live elsewhere.
The Hall still retained its importance in Moresby opinion; but had ceased to be the centre of magnificent bounty, such as it had been in the past. Now that it was let to wealthy people, local interest was stirred to a pitch of tremendous