In this dim chamber hidden away
Lies one who once found life as dear
As now he finds his slumbers here:
Pray, then, the Judgement but increase
His deep, everlasting peace!”
“But then, do you know you lie at peace?” Lawford audibly questioned, gazing at the doggerel. And yet, as his eyes wandered over the blunt green stone and the rambling crimson-berried brier that had almost encircled it with its thorns, the echo of that whisper rather jarred. He was, he supposed, rather a dull creature—at least people seemed to think so—and he seldom felt at ease even with his own small facetiousness. Besides, just that kind of question was getting very common. Now that cleverness was the fashion most people were clever—even perfect fools; and cleverness after all was often only a bore: all head and no body. He turned languidly to the small cross-shaped stone on the other side:
“Here lies the body of Ann Hard, who died in child-bed.
Also of James, her infant son.”
He muttered the words over with a kind of mournful bitterness. “That’s just it—just it; that’s just how it goes!” … He yawned softly; the pathway had come to an end. Beyond him lay ranker grass, one and another obscurer mounds, an old scarred oak seat, shadowed by a few everlastingly green cypresses and coral-fruited yew-trees. And above and beyond all hung a pale blue arch of sky with a few voyaging clouds like silvered wool, and the calm wide curves of stubble field and pasture land. He stood with vacant eyes, not in the least aware how queer a figure he made with his gloves and his umbrella and his hat among the stained and tottering gravestones. Then, just to linger out his hour, and half sunken in reverie, he walked slowly over to the few solitary graves beneath the cypresses.
One only was commemorated with a tombstone, a rather unusual oval-headed stone, carved at each corner into what might be the heads of angels, or of pagan dryads, blindly facing each other with worn-out, sightless faces. A low curved granite canopy arched over the grave, with a crevice so wide between its stones that Lawford actually bent down and slid in his gloved fingers between them. He straightened himself with a sigh, and followed with extreme difficulty the well-nigh illegible inscription:
“Here lie ye Bones of one,
Nicholas Sabathier, a Stranger to this Parish,
who fell by his own Hand on ye
Eve of Ste. Michael and All Angels.
MDCCXXXIX.”
Of the date he was a little uncertain. The “Hand” had lost its “n” and “d”; and all the “Angels” rain had erased. He was not quite sure even of the “Stranger.” There was a great rich “S,” and the twisted tail of a “g”; and, whether or not, Lawford smilingly thought, he is no Stranger now. But how rare and how memorable a name! French evidently; probably Huguenot. And the Huguenots, he remembered vaguely, were a rather remarkable “crowd.” He had, he thought, even played at “Huguenots” once. What was the man’s name? Coligny; yes, of course, Coligny. “And I suppose,” Lawford continued, muttering to himself, “I suppose this poor beggar was put here out of the way. They might, you know,” he added confidentially, raising the ferrule of his umbrella, “they might have stuck a stake through you, and buried you at the crossroads.” And again, a feeling of ennui, a faint disgust at his poor little witticism, clouded over his mind. It was a pity thoughts always ran the easiest way, like water in old ditches.
“ ‘Here lie ye bones of one, Nicholas Sabathier,’ ” he began murmuring again—“merely bones, mind you; brains and heart are quite another story. And it’s pretty certain the fellow had some kind of brains. Besides, poor devil! he killed himself. That seems to hint at brains … Oh, for goodness’ sake!” he cried out; so loud that the sound of his voice alarmed even a robin that had perched on a twig almost within touch, with glittering eye intent above its dim red breast on this other and even rarer stranger.
“I wonder if it is XXXIX.; it might be LXXIX.” Lawford cast a cautious glance over his round grey shoulder, then laboriously knelt down beside the stone, and peeped into the gaping cranny. There he encountered merely the tiny, pale-green, faintly conspicuous eyes of a large spider, confronting his own. It was for the moment an alarming, and yet a faintly fascinating experience. The little almost colourless fires remained so changeless. But still, even when at last they had actually vanished into the recesses of that quiet habitation, Lawford did not rise from his knees. An utterly unreasonable feeling of dismay, a sudden weakness and weariness had come over him.
“What is the good of it all?” he asked himself inconsequently—this monotonous, restless, stupid life to which he was soon to be returning, and for good. He began to realize how ludicrous a spectacle he must be, kneeling here amid the weeds and grass beneath the solemn cypresses. “Well, you can’t have everything,” seemed loosely to express his disquiet.
He stared vacantly at the green and fretted gravestone, dimly aware that his heart was beating with an unusual effort. He felt ill and weak. He leant his hand on the stone and lifted himself on to the low wooden seat nearby. He drew off his glove and thrust his bare hand under his waistcoat, with his mouth a little ajar, and his eyes fixed on the dark square turret, its bell sharply defined against the evening sky.
“Dead!” a bitter inward voice seemed to break into speech; “Dead!” The viewless air seemed to be flocking with hidden listeners. The very clearness and the crystal silence were their ambush. He alone seemed to be the target of cold and hostile scrutiny. There was not a breath to breathe in this crisp, pale sunshine. It was all too rare, too thin. The shadows lay like wings everlastingly folded. The robin that had been his only living witness
