And underneath this;
"Deere Lord, I, that was yr Bedfellowe,
do reare thys thatte yf yt please Godde so to do
and Hee bringe You to my Side there shal not
Lacke a Space."
"The famous Lady Jane rests under the adjoining sarcophagus with the plain lid," continued the Vicar. "I wish we might find the old crypt. It is somewhere under the Priory grounds but she concealed it very effectually. The tradition is that the old lords were buried in their mail. They were all noted as warriors. Ah, Lord Chesby," as Hugh rose and walked over to us. "This has been very sad, very sad, indeed. And yet, as I was saying to Mr. Nash, it is something for a man after he dies to be brought back to wait the Last Trump in such glorious company."
"I am afraid I have been thinking of the criminals who murdered my uncle," said Hugh curtly. "You have been very kind, sir. I should like to thank you and everybody else for what they have done. Where's Nikka, Jack? Gone up? Do you mind if we leave you to shut the vault, Mr. Penfellow? Thank you again."
He hooked his arm in mine, and together we passed out of that sepulchral chamber, with its great company of illustrious dead. Upstairs in the church porch Nikka was awaiting us, breathing in deep gusts of the air that blew in tinctured with the perfume of Crowden Forest that stretched all around the village.
"I'm sorry, Hugh," he exclaimed, taking Hugh's other arm, "I couldn't wait. There's something in me that rebels against your churches. I feel the same way about mosques and synagogues, for that matter. And as for being buried down in a close, stone-lined hole in the ground, herded in with other dead!" He shivered violently. "I hope not! If there is a God—and there must be some kind of one to make the trees and hills and the grass and to put music in one's heart—why, I pray to Him that I shall lie on a hillside, with only the trees around me and the sun beating down."
Hugh smiled.
"Each to his own, Nikka. You are a Gypsy, a son of the open road. I am an Englishman, son to these stone walls, that old house we came from. I cannot get away from it. I am bound up with them. So long as they and I last we shall be indivisible."