in the performance of its appointed task. Robert himself was invisible; he was also, which was unusual, inaudible; the only sounds to be heard were those made by the spade and the falling earth.

The vicar stepped upon the grass and approached the open grave, looking about him with the perplexed air of a man whose locality is at fault. Finally he looked into the grave. Robert, perspiring freely, his flannel shirt open at the throat, looked up, and paused in his labours and rested upon his spade.

“You are a good twenty yards from the spot we marked,” said the vicar.

Robert wiped his brow with a red pocket-handkerchief, and nodded briefly. The vicar did not appear surprised. Unless he attended at the cutting of the sods, Robert, possessing no bump of locality, frequently overran his distances.

“I ought to ’a’ waited for you,” he said, and mopped his brow again. “Thought this was the place we fixed on. But I mind now it was nearer the old yew tree. I ought to ’a’ waited for you, sir,” he repeated, and looked, the vicar observed, perturbed. “I got wrong somehow.”

“Well, I suppose,” the vicar said, “this spot will serve as well as another.”

Robert spat upon his hands and grasped his spade, but he did not immediately use it. He gazed down into the grave resentfully, and then lifted his bearded face to Walter Errol’s, watching him from above.

“I ’eaved up a corpse,” he said.

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 

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