ears well in the deep, black
ground. It holds the body in the still, black ground.

Two years! The body has been in the ground two years. It is worn away;
it is clay to clay. Where the heart moulders, a greenish dust, the
stake is thrust. Late August it is, and night; a night flauntingly
jewelled with stars, a night of shooting stars and loud insect noises.
Down the road to Tilbury, silence--and the slow flapping of large
leaves. Down the road to Sutton, silence--and the darkness of
heavy-foliaged trees. Down the road to Wayfleet, silence--and the
whirring scrape of insects in the branches. Down the road to
Edgarstown, silence--and stars like stepping-stones in a pathway
overhead. It is very quiet at the cross-roads, and the sign-board
points the way down the four roads, endlessly points the way where
nobody wishes to go.

A horse is galloping, galloping up from Sutton. Shaking the wide, still
leaves as he goes under them. Striking sparks with his iron shoes;
silencing the katydids. Dr. Morgan riding to a child-birth over Tilbury
way; riding to deliver a woman of her first-born son. One o'clock from
Wayfleet bell tower, what a shower of shooting stars! And a breeze all
of a sudden, jarring the big leaves and making them jerk up and down.
Dr. Morgan's hat is blown from his head, the horse swerves, and curves
away from the sign-post. An oath--spurs--a blurring of grey mist. A
quick left twist, and the gelding is snorting and racing down the
Tilbury road with the wind dropping away behind him.

The stake has wrenched, the stake has started, the body, flesh from
flesh, has parted. But the bones hold tight, socket and ball, and
clamping them down in the hard, black ground is the stake, wedged
through ribs and spine. The bones may twist, and heave, and twine, but
the stake holds them still in line. The breeze goes down, and the round
stars shine, for the stake holds the fleshless bones in line.

Twenty years now! Twenty long years! The body has powdered itself
away; it is clay to clay. It is brown earth mingled with brown earth.
Only flaky bones remain, lain together so long they fit, although not
one bone is knit to another. The stake is there too, rotted through,
but upright still, and still piercing down between ribs and spine in a
straight line.

Yellow stillness is on the cross-roads, yellow stillness is on the
trees. The leaves hang drooping, wan. The four roads point four yellow
ways, saff