Albert was buried with all the decent rites of the Establishment. He was laid to rest in the Christian company of his mother and his brother George, at the bottom of the churchyard where it touched the pond; a little way from him was the old yeoman who had "never wanted anything he hadn't got, and so hadn't got anything he didn't want." It relieved Pete a little to think that from where he lay his brother could not see Boarzell—"not even if he sat up in his grave."
The funeral was dignified and impressive, and every now and then Reuben glanced across at his son with eyes that said—"Wot could Ebenezer have done compared wud this?" All the same, he was disappointed. Somehow he had expected his churchmanship to strike the rector and the curate very favourably; he had expected them metaphorically to fall on his neck; he saw himself as a champion of established Christendom, of tithes and glebes and cosy rectories and "dearly beloved brethren" on Sundays. It was humiliating to find himself ignored, indeed treated as an outsider, simply because he had not been to church for ten years. He had had his children baptised into the Establishment, and now he was burying his son according to its rites, in spite of opposition, even persecution. These parsons were ungrateful, bigoted, and blind.
Perhaps though, he thought, their behaviour was partially accounted for by that of Pete, who stood beside the grave with his eyes shut, saying "A-aaa-men" at unliturgical intervals, as only Dissenters can say it.
§ 15.
Pete spent that evening with Ades, and Reuben's fireside slumbers were unrestful because he missed Pete's accustomed snore from the other end of the settle. The next morning his son did not appear, though there was plenty of work to be done in the hop-fields. The young hops were now well above ground, and exposed to the perils of blight, so Reuben and Beatup were spraying them with insect-killer, badly in need of a third man to do the mixing.
"Where's Pete?" asked Reuben.
"I dunno—äun't seen un this mornun. Ah—thur he be!"
"Where?"
"Cöaming up by the brook, surelye."
Reuben stared in amazement. The approaching figure undoubtedly was Pete, but a Pete so changed by circumstances and demeanour as to be almost unrecognisable. He wore his Sunday black clothes, which—as, with the exception of the funeral, he had not put them on for ten years—were something of a misfit. On his head was a black hat with a wide flapping brim, he walked with a measured step and his hands folded in front of him.