And above him the chestnuts in their breathing stillness,
the aspens with their tender rustling, seemed to watch and whisper: "Oh,
little men! oh, little men!"
The moon, at the end of her first quarter, sailed out of the shadow of
the churchyard--the same young moon that had sailed in her silver irony
when the first Barter preached, the first Pendyce was Squire at Worsted
Skeynes; the same young moon that, serene, ineffable, would come again
when the last Barter slept, the last Pendyce was gone, and on their
gravestones, through the amethystine air, let fall her gentle light.
The Rector thought:
'I shall set Stedman to work on that corner. We must have more room;
the stones there are a hundred and fifty years old if they're a day. You
can't read a single word. They'd better be the first to go.'
He passed on along the paddock footway leading to the Squire's.
Day was gone, and only the moonbeams lighted the tall grasses.
At the Hall the long French windows of the dining-room were open; the
Squire was sitting there alone, brooding sadly above the remnants of
the fruit he had been eating. Flanking him on either wall hung a silent
company, the effigies of past Pendyces; and at the end, above the oak
and silver of the sideboard, the portrait of his wife was looking at
them under lifted brows, with her faint wonder.
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