The Grave by the
Handpost
I never pass
through Chalk-Newton without turning to regard the neighboring upland, at a
point where a lane crosses the lone straight highway dividing this from the
next parish; a sight which does not fail to recall the event that once happened
there; and, though it may seem superfluous, at this date, to disinter more
memories of village history, the whispers of that spot may claim to be
preserved.
It was on a dark,
yet mild and exceptionally dry evening at Christmas-time (according to the
testimony of William Dewy of Mellstock, Michael Mail, and others), that the
choir of Chalk-Newton—a large parish situate about halfway between the towns of
Ivell and Casterbridge, and now a railway station—left their homes just before
midnight to repeat their annual harmonies under the windows of the local
population. The band of instrumentalists and singers was one of the largest in
the county; and, unlike the smaller and finer Mellstock string-band, which
eschewed all but the catgut, it included brass and reed performers at full
Sunday services, and reached all across the west gallery.
On this night
there were two or three violins, two 'cellos, a tenor viol, double bass, haut
boy, clarionets, serpent, and seven singers. It was, however, not the choir's
labors, but what its members chanced to witness, that particularly marked the
occasion.
They had pursued
their rounds for many years without meeting with any incident of an unusual
kind, but tonight, according to the assertions of several, there prevailed, to
begin with, an exceptionally solemn and thoughtful mood among two or three of
the oldest in the band, as if they were thinking they might be joined by the
phantoms of dead friends who had been of their number in earlier years, and now
were mute in the churchyard under flattening mounds—friends who had shown
greater zest for melody in their time than was shown in this; or that some past
voice of a semi-transparent figure might quaver from some bedroom-window its
acknowledgment of their nocturnal greeting, instead of a familiar living
neighbor. Whether this were fact or fancy, the younger members of the choir met
together with their customary thoughtlessness and buoyancy. When they had
gathered by the stone stump of the cross in the middle of the village, near the
White Horse Inn, which they made their starting point, some one observed that
they were full early, that it was not yet
The road from
Chalk-Newton to Broad Sidlinch is about two miles long and in the middle of its
course, where it passes over the ridge dividing the two villages, it crosses at
right angles, as has been stated, the lonely monotonous old highway known as
Long Ash Lane, which runs, straight as a surveyor's line, many miles north and
south of this spot, on the foundation of a Roman road, and has often been
mentioned in these narratives. Though now quite deserted and grass grown, at
the beginning of the century it was well-kept and frequented by traffic. The
glimmering light appeared to come from the precise point where the roads
intersected.
"I think I
know what that mid mean!" one of the group remarked.
They stood a few
moments, discussing the probability of the light having origin in an event of
which rumors had reached them, and resolved to go up the hill.
Approaching the
high land their conjectures were strengthened. Long
The singers and
musicians from Chalk-Newton halted, and looked on while the gravediggers
shoveled in and trod down the earth, till, the hole being filled, the latter
threw their spades into the cart, and prepared to depart.
"Who mid ye
be a-burying there?" asked Lot Swanhills in a raised voice. "Not the
sergeant?"
The Sidlinch men
had been so deeply engrossed in their task that they had not noticed the
lanterns of the Chalk-Newton choir till now.
"What—be you
the
"Ay, sure.
Can it be that it is old Sergeant Holway you've a-buried there?"
" 'Tis so.
You've heard about it, then?"
The choir knew no
particulars—only that he had shot himself in his apple-closet on the previous
Sunday. "Nobody seem'th to know what 'a did it for, 'a b'lieve? Leastwise,
we don't know at Chalk-Newton," continued
"O, yes It
all came out at the inquest."
The singers drew
close, and the Sidlinch men, pausing, to rest after their labors, told the
story. "It was all owing to that son of his, poor old man. It broke his
heart."
"But the son
is a soldier, surely; now with his regiment in the
"Ay. And it
have been rough with the army over there lately. 'Twas a pity his father
persuaded him to go. But Luke shouldn't have twyted the sergeant o't since 'a
did it for the best."
The circumstances,
in brief, were these: The sergeant who had come to this lamentable end, father
of the young soldier who had gone with his regiment to the East, had been
singularly comfortable in his military experiences, these having ended long
before the outbreak of the great war with
"Trade is
coming to nothing in these days," he said. "And if the war with the
French lasts, as it will, trade will be still worse. The army, Luke—that's the
thing for 'ee. 'Twas the making of me, and 'twill be the making of you. I
hadn't half such a chance as you'll have in these splendid hotter times."
Luke demurred, for
he was a home-keeping, peace loving youth. But, putting respectful trust in his
father's judgment, he at length gave way, and enlisted in the —d Foot. In the
course of a few weeks he was sent out to
But Luke was
unlucky. News came home indirectly that he lay sick out there; and then on one
recent day when his father was out walking, the old man had received tidings
that a letter awaited him at Casterbridge. The sergeant sent a special
messenger the whole nine miles, and the letter was paid for and brought home;
but though, as he had guessed, it came from Luke, its contents were of an
unexpected tenor.
The letter had
been written during a time of deep depression. Luke said that his life was a
burden and a slavery, and bitterly reproached his father for advising him to
embark on a career for which he felt unsuited. He found himself suffering
fatigues and illnesses without gaining glory, and engaged in a cause which he
did not understand or appreciate. If it had not been for his father's bad
advice he, Luke, would now have been working comfortably at a trade in the
village that he had never wished to leave.
After reading the
letter the sergeant advanced a few steps till he was quite out of sight of
everybody, and then sat down on the bank by the wayside.
When he arose
half-an-hour later he looked withered and broken, and from that day his natural
spirits left him. Wounded to the quick by his son's sarcastic stings, he
indulged in liquor more and more frequently. His wife had died some years
before this date, and the sergeant lived alone in the house which had been
hers. One morning in the December under notice the report of a gun had been
heard on his premises, and on entering the neighbors found him in a dying
state. He had shot himself with an old firelock that he used for scaring birds;
and from what he had said the day before, and the arrangements he had made for
his decease, there was no doubt that his end had been deliberately planned, as
a consequence of the despondency into which he had been thrown by his son's
letter. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of felo de se.
"Here's his
son's letter," said one of the Sidlinch men.
" 'Twas found
in his father's pocket. You can see by the state o't how many times he read it
over. Howsomever, the Lord's will be done, since it must, whether or no."
The grave was
filled up and leveled, no mound being shaped over it. The Sidlinch men then
bade the Chalk-Newton choir good-night, and departed with the cart in which
they had brought the sergeant's body to the hill. When their tread had died
away from the ear, and the wind swept over the isolated grave with its
customary siffle of indifference, Lot Swanhills turned and spoke to old Richard
Toller, the hautboy player.
" 'Tis hard
upon a man, and he a wold sojer, to serve en so, Richard. Not that the sergeant
was ever in a battle bigger than would go into a half-acre paddock, that's
true. Still, his soul ought to hae as good a chance as another man's, all the
same, hey?"
Richard replied
that he was quite of the same opinion. "What d'ye say to lifting up a
carrel over his grave, as 'tis Christmas, and no hurry to begin down in parish,
and 'twouldn’t take up ten minutes, and not a soul up hereto say us nay, or
know anything about it?"
"Ye may as
well spet upon his grave, for all the good we shall do en by what we lift up,
now he's got so far," said Notton, the clarionet man and professed sceptic
of the choir. "But I'm agreed if the rest be."
They thereupon
placed themselves in a semicircle by the newly stirred earth, and roused the
dull air with the well-known Number Sixteen of their collection, which
He comes' the
pri'-soners to' re-lease',
in Sa'-tan's
bon'-dage held'.
"Jown
it—we've never played to a dead man afore," said Ezra Cattstock, when,
having concluded the last verse, they stood reflecting for a breath or two.
"But it do seem more merciful than to go away and leave en, as they
t'other fellers have done."
"Now back
along to
They had not,
however, done more than gather up their instruments when the wind brought to
their notice the noise of a vehicle rapidly driven up the same lane from
Sidlinch which the gravediggers had lately retraced. To avoid being run over
when moving on, they waited till the benighted traveler, whoever he might be,
should pass them where they stood in the wider area of the Cross.
In half a minute
the light of the lanterns fell upon a hired fly, drawn by a steaming and jaded
horse. It reached the handpost, when a voice from the inside cried, "Stop
here!" The driver pulled rein. The carriage door was opened from within,
and there leapt out a private soldier in the uniform of some line regiment. He
looked around, and was apparently surprised to seethe musicians standing there.
"Have you
buried a man here?" he asked.
"No. We
bain't Sidlinch folk, thank God; we be
"Don't—don't
ask me. The funeral is over, then?'
"There wer no
funeral, in a Christen manner of speaking. But's buried, sure enough. You must
have met the men going back in the empty cart."
"Like a dog
in a ditch, and all through me!"
He remained
silent, looking at the grave, and they could not help pitying him. "My
friends," he said, "I understand better now. You have, I suppose, in neighborly
charity, sung peace to his soul? I thank you, from my heart, for your kind
pity. Yes; I am Sergeant Holway's miserable son—I'm the son who has brought
about his father's death, as truly as if I had done it with my own hand!"
"No, no.
Don't ye take on so, young man. He'd been naturally low for a good while, off
and on, so we hear."
"We were out
in the East when I wrote to him. Everything had seemed to go wrong with me.
Just after my letter had gone we were ordered home. That's how it is you see me
here. As soon as we got into barracks at Casterbridge I heard o' this— . . .
Damn me! I'll dare to follow my father, and make away with myself, too. It is
the only thing left to do!"
"Don't ye be
rash, Luke Holway, I say again; but try to make amends by your future life. And
maybe your father will smile a smile down from heaven upon 'ee for 't."
He shook his head.
"I don't know about that!" he answered bitterly.
"Try and be
worthy of your father at his best. 'Tis not too late."
"D'ye think
not? I fancy it is! . . . Well, I'll turn it over. Thank you for your good
counsel. I'll live for one thing, at any rate. I'll move father's body to a
decent Christian churchyard, if I do it with my own hands. I can't save his
life, but I can give him an honorable grave. He shan't lie in this accursed
place!"
"Ay, as our
pa'son says, 'tis a barbarous custom they keep up at Sidlinch, and ought to be
done away wi'. The man a' old soldier, too. You see, our pa'son is not like
yours at Sidlinch."
"He says it
is barbarous, does he? So it is!" cried the soldier. "Now hearken, my
friends." Then he proceeded to inquire if they would increase his
indebtedness to them by undertaking the removal, privately, of the body of the
suicide to the churchyard, not of Sidlinch, a parish he now hated, but of
Chalk-Newton. He would give them all he possessed to do it.
Lot asked Ezra
Cattstock what he thought of it.
Cattstock, the
'cello player, who was also the sexton, demurred, and advised the young soldier
to sound the rector about it first. 'Mid be he would object, and yet 'a midn’t.
The pa'son o' Sidlinch is a hard man, I own ye, and 'a said if folk will kill
theirselves in hot blood they must take the consequences. But ours don't think
like that at all, and might allow it."
"What's his
name?"
"The
honorable and reverent Mr. Oldham, brother to Lord Wessex. But you needn't be
afeard o' en on that account. He'll talk to 'ee like a common man, if so be you
haven't had enough drink to gie 'ee bad breath."
"O, the same
as formerly. I'll ask him. Thank you. And that duty done—"
"What
then?"
"There's war
in Spain. I hear our next move is there. I'll try to show myself to be what my
father wished me. I don't suppose I shall—but I'll try in my feeble way. That
much I swear—here over his body. So help me God."
Luke smacked his
palm against the white handpost with such force that it shook. "Yes,
there's war in Spain; and another chance for me to be worthy of father."
So the matter
ended that night. That the private acted in one thing as he had vowed to do
soon became apparent, for during the Christmas week the rector came into the
churchyard when Cattstock was there, and asked him to find a spot that would be
suitable for the purpose of such an interment, adding that he had slightly
known the late sergeant, and was not aware of any law which forbade him to
assent to the removal, the letter of the rule having been observed. But as he
did not wish to seem moved by opposition to his neighbor at Sidlinch, he had stipulated
that the act of charity should be carried out at night, and as privately as
possible, and that the grave should be in an obscure part of the enclosure.
"You had better seethe young man about it at once," added the rector.
But before Ezra
had done anything Luke came down to his house. His furlough had been cut short,
owing to new developments of the war in the Peninsula, and being obliged to go
back to his regiment immediately, he was compelled to leave the exhumation and
reinterment to his friends. Everything was paid for, and he implored them all
to see it carried out forthwith.
With this the
soldier left. The next day Ezra, on thinking the matter over, again went across
to the rectory, struck with sudden misgiving. He had remembered that the sergeant
had been buried without a coffin, and he was not sure that a stake had not been
driven through him. The business would be more troublesome than they had at
first supposed.
"Yes,
indeed!" murmured the rector. "I am afraid it is not feasible after
all."
The next event was
the arrival of a headstone by carrier from the nearest town; to be left at Mr.
Ezra Cattstock's; all expenses paid. The sexton and the carrier deposited the
stone in the former's outhouse; and Ezra, left alone, put on his spectacles and
read the brief and simple inscription:—
HERE LYETH THE
BODY OF SAMUEL HOLWAY, LATE SERGEANT IN HIS MAJESTY’S —D REGIMENT OF FOOT, WHO
DEPARTED THIS LIFE DECEMBERTHE 20TH, 180—.
ERECTED By L. H.
'I AM NOT WORTHY
TO BE CALLED THY SON. '
Ezra again called
at the riverside rectory. "The stone is come, sir. But I'm afeard we can't
do it no how."
"I should
like to oblige him, said the gentlemanly old incumbent. 'And I would forego all
fees willingly. Still, if you and the others don't think you can carry it out,
I am in doubt what to say."
"Well, Sir;
I've made inquiry of a Sidlinch woman as to his burial, and what I thought
seems true. They buried en wi' a new six-foot hurdle-saul drough's body, from
the sheep-pen up in North Ewelease, though they won't own to it now. And the
question is, Is the moving worth while, considering the awkwardness?"
"Have you
heard anything more of the young man?"
Ezra had only
heard that he had embarked that week for Spain with the rest of the regiment.
"And if he's as desperate as 'a seemed, we shall never see him here in
England again."
"It is an
awkward case," said the rector.
Ezra talked it
over with the choir; one of whom suggested that the stone might be erected at
the crossroads. This was regarded as impracticable. Another said that it might
be set up in the churchyard without removing the body; but this was seen to be
dishonest. So nothing was done.
The headstone
remained in Ezra's outhouse till, growing tired of seeing it there, he put it
away among the bushes at the bottom of his garden. The subject was sometimes
revived among them, but it always ended with: "Considering how 'a was
buried, we can hardly make a job o't."
There was always
the consciousness that Luke would never comeback, an impression strengthened by
the disasters which were rumored to have befallen the army in Spain. This
tended to make their inertness permanent. The headstone grew green as it lay on
its back under Ezra's bushes; then a tree by the river was blown down, and,
falling across the stone, cracked it in three pieces. Ultimately the pieces
became buried in the leaves and mold.
Luke had not been
born a Chalk-Newton man, and he had no relations left in Sidlinch, so that no
tidings of him reached either village throughout the war. But after Waterloo
and the fall of Napoleon there arrived at Sidlinch one day an English
sergeant-major covered with stripes and, as it turned out, rich in glory.
Foreign service had so totally changed Luke Holway that it was not until he
told his name that the inhabitants recognized him as the sergeant's only son.
He had served with
unswerving effectiveness through the Peninsular campaigns under Wellington; had
fought at Busaco, Fuentes d'Onore, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca,
Vittoria, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo; and had now returned to enjoy a more than
earned pension and repose in his native district.
He hardly stayed
in Sidlinch longer than to take a meal on his arrival. The same evening he
started on foot over the hill to Chalk-Newton, passing the handpost, and Saying
as he glanced at the spot, "Thank God: he's not there!" Nightfall was
approaching when he reached the latter village; but he made straight for the
churchyard. On his entering it there remained light enough to discern the
headstones by, and these he narrowly scanned. But though he searched the front
part by the road, and the back part by the river, what he sought he could not
find—the grave of Sergeant Holway, and a memorial bearing the inscription: 'I
AM NOT WORTHY TO BE CALLED THY SON. '
He left the
churchyard and made inquiries. The honorable and reverend old rector was dead,
and so were many of the choir; but by degrees the sergeant-major learnt that
his father still lay at the cross-roads in Long Ash Lane.
Luke pursued his
way moodily homewards, to do which, in the natural course, he would be
compelled to repass the spot, there being no other road between the two
villages. But he could not now go by that place, vociferous with reproaches in
his father’s tones; and he got over the hedge and wandered deviously through
the plowed fields to avoid the scene. Through many a fight and fatigue Luke had
been sustained by the thought that he was restoring the family honor and making
noble amends. Yet his father lay still in degradation. It was rather a sentiment
than a fact that his father's body had been made to suffer for his own
misdeeds; but to his 'Super-sensitiveness it seemed that his efforts to
retrieve his character and to propitiate the shade of the insulted one had
ended in failure.
He endeavored,
however, to shake off his lethargy, and, not liking the associations of
Sidlinch, hired a small cottage at Chalk-Newton which had long been empty. Here
he lived alone, becoming quite a hermit, and allowing no woman to enter the
house.
The Christmas
after taking up his abode herein he was sitting in the chimney corner by
himself, when he heard faint notes in the distance, and soon a melody burst
forth immediately outside his own window. It came from the carol singers, as
usual; and though many of the old hands, Ezra and Lot included, had gone to
their rest, the same old carols were still played out of the same old books.
There resounded through the sergeant-major's window-shutters the familiar lines
that the deceased choir had rendered over his father's grave:
He comes' the
pri'-soners to' re-lease',
In Sa'-tan's
bon'-dage held'.
When they had
finished they went on to another house, leaving him to silence and loneliness
as before.
The candle wanted
snuffing, but he did not snuff it, and he sat on till it had burnt down into
the socket and made waves of shadow on the ceiling.
The Christmas
cheerfulness of next morning was broken at breakfast-time by tragic
intelligence which went down the village like wind. Sergeant-Major Holway had
been found shot through the head by his own hand at the cross-roads in Long Ash
Lane where his father lay buried.
On the table in
the cottage he had left a piece of paper, on which he had written his wish that
he might be buried at the Cross beside his father. But the paper was
accidentally swept to the floor, and overlooked till after his funeral, which
took place in the ordinary way in the churchyard.
Christmas 1897.