Gray on his more pressing rounds, and the postman doing his pickup from the local office. He was always one of the first villagers up and about in the morning, right behind the milkman, Dr. And I’m quite lost, you see.”Īs a lifelong resident of Chawton, population 377, the man was not surprised. “I’m so sorry to disturb you, but you’re the first person I’ve met all morning. In one hand she held a small pamphlet, in the other a black clutch purse-and around her neck hung a tiny cross on a short silver chain. She looked quite tall, almost the same height as him, until he realized she was wearing the highest pair of heels he had ever seen. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat with an indigo-blue ribbon tied about it that matched the deep blue of her tailored dress.
She appeared to be quite young, no older than her early twenties. He looked at her face quickly, glanced at the rest of her, then just as quickly looked away. Sitting up, he swung his legs down from the stone wall to stand before her. He jolted awake at the voice now resonant above him. But as the farmer’s laboured breath became deep and rhythmic with sleep, the dog took his own cue and lay down beneath his master in the cool dirt of the graveyard. His dog had been on guard until that moment, looking out over the mossy stone wall at the sheep that dotted the fields below, just past the hidden ha-ha that marked the perimeter of the estate. The multitude of finches, robins, and tits suddenly quieted down as if on command, and he closed his eyes. As he lay there, he could feel the back of his shirt, damp from sweat, even though the sun was pale and barely trying at just nine in the morning he had already been hard at work in the fields for several hours. Huge bundles of hay had already been piled up high on the back of the wagon, waiting for transport to the horse and dairy farms that dotted the outer vicinity of the village, stretching in a row from Alton to East Tisted. It was haying season, and he had left his wagon in the lane, right where it met the kissing gate and the farm fields at the end of old Gosport Road. He had never left his small village to see the great cathedrals of his country, but he knew from books how the sculpted ancient rulers lay just like this, atop their elevated shrines, for lower men like himself to gaze at centuries later in awe.
He must have looked like an effigy himself, resting on top of the wall, as if carved into permanent silence, abreast a silent tomb. Lying there, still, face turned flat upwards to the sky, he could feel death all around him in the small church graveyard. The birdsong pierced the early-morning air in little shrieks that hammered at his very skull. He lay back on the low stone wall, knees pulled up, and stretched out his spine against the rock.
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