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father,’ he said, ‘and Sophocles.’ The headmaster beamed. His father murmured incoherently that he must go now, disappeared across the gravel, his heavy boots sounding self-consciously.
    Andrews did not know then what kept his father away from home for short and frequent periods of blessed peace. He never knew the cause of that particular unfortunate visit. Perhaps he was on his way to the coast and a sudden realization that his career must end sooner or later in death made him anxious to see his only idea of immortality. The voyage which followed must have reached its normal, successful end, for a few weeks later, when holidays fetched Andrews home, his father was there, dominant, easily aroused, as ready as ever with the whip, which he seemed to keep more for his family than for his hounds. A year later, while the child was at school and the father at sea, the mother died with the serene faithfulness of a completely broken will.
    The shambling priest was reading the lesson in a meaningless drawl muffled by the mist and his increasing cold. The words meant no more to him than did the dead man. It was a mechanic ritual less conscious than the act of brushing teeth.
    ‘I speak this to your shame. But some men will say, how are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.’
    The coffin had been carried from the cottage in a farm cart. Elizabeth beside him he had walked into a wall of white that at every step melted before him and closed behind him. The villagers and their wives followed after, their footsteps sounding no louder than the drip of misty rain that fell from trees and bushes along their road. The silence was greater for the regular small tap tap of feet and drip drop of water. They could see the back of the cart which they followed but not the horse that drew it. Andrews looked behind him and saw a ghostly platoon. Faces and hands thrown forward in front of invisible bodies appeared and disappeared. He felt suddenly that all danger had been remitted until the funeral was over. Disembodied faces, hands that swam unattached in a white sea could not hurt him. He longed – not passionately, his mind was too asleep for passion – but with a small elusive ache that they would never reach the graveyard. This ache had crept into his sleep and also a sense of friendship with the girl who paced slowly beside him. He was asleep and longed a little that he might not awake. In his sleep one lay with him who would be gone when there was daylight in the brain.
    They reached the burying place, and as the service went on fatigue grew and threatened to strip away his unconsciousness. He became aware that somewhere, as yet outside his mind but ready, opportunity given, to leap within, lay the fear to which he had grown accustomed. He held it at bay outside himself, but the struggle, as the minutes passed and the priest’s voice droned on, grew more intense.
    They had taken the coffin to the edge of the grave, and the service must be drawing to an end. The priest’s voice grew rapid like the feet of a horse when its head is turned to home, faster and faster with the faintest trace of excitement at the thought of food and a rest from journeying: ‘O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not at our last hour for any pains of death to fall from thee.’ They had lowered the coffin into the grave and began laboriously to shovel earth upon it. Spades slipped on the ground which was hard with cold. To Andrews the falling clods were a measurement of time, recording the vanishing moments of his peace. He would be happy to stand in the cold and the mist through eternity watching the shovelling spades. Fear was pressing in upon his mind. He could not keep it outside himself for long.
    Bundles of mist disintegrated. A low chatter of voices began, replete with the blessing which had just been pronounced and moved towards the grave.