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.