75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

‘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 honourable 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 mid’nt. 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 honourable 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 hand-post 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 neighbour 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 see the 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 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.’