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 December the 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 nohow.’

‘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 come back, an impression strengthened by the disasters which were rumoured 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 mould.