(4/13) Battles at Thrush Green by Miss Read

very much the head of his household, he was accompanied by his dutiful wife and children, and the presence of the Hodge family at Mattins and Evensong helped to mitigate the sparseness of the congregation.
    With him was Mrs Cleary, the widow of James Cleary whose family had run the corn merchant's business in Lulling from time immemorial. Hard on their heels came Harold Shoosmith and Miss Watson. She had emerged from the school house just as Harold set off, and they had walked across the Green together.
    They all exclaimed with pleasure at the sight of the fire, and Harold thought how much more cheerful the room looked than it usually did. The whole house could do with a fire in every room was his personal opinion, and a sound central heating system as well, but one would need at least twice as much as Charles's salary to afford that, he surmised.
    Charles hurried in to greet his friends, and busied himself in setting them round the dining room table. They left the fire, with some reluctance, as the rest of the council arrived.
    'Well now,' began Charles, when they had worked through the usual preliminaries, 'we come to the next item on our agenda: "The Future of the Churchyard." I have a little proposition to put forward.'
    He began to expound it with clarity and enthusiasm. The difficulties of its present maintenance and the sadness which the community felt at its dilapidated condition were put forward admirably, and there were murmurs of agreement as the rector made his points.
    When he reached the proposal, however, the murmurs grew less noticeable, and Harold Shoosmith saw signs of restlessness among one or two members.
    Oblivious of the drop in the temperature of the meeting, Charles described the visit to the churchyard in the west which had done so much to arouse his ambitions for their own.
    'The place is an inspiration,' declared the rector. 'And I feel sure that Mr Shoosmith will bear me out.'
    Harold nodded.
    'It can be done here,' he went on, 'and I don't think there would be any difficulty in getting a faculty.'
    He paused and looked hopefully at the faces round the table.
    Percy Hodge was the first to speak.
    'Mr Chairman, sir, I don't altogether like the idea. This tampering with graves will upset people. It does me, for that matter.'
    'Me too,' said Mrs Cleary, with some indignation. 'My husband and I spent a lot on that cross and kerb for his mother, and now his name is engraved under hers, and I just don't want the stones shifted. Our nearest and dearest are there, in that spot – I may say, that hallowed spot – and to have the memorial stones put elsewhere is downright misleading, not to say sacrilegious!'

    She was quite pink in the face after this outburst, and poor Charles gazed at her in dismay.
    'But they would not be disturbed, my dear Mrs Cleary, simply removed to the perimeter of the churchyard. It would all be most reverently done, I assure you. The graves themselves would not be touched.'
    'I still think it's wrong,' said Mrs Cleary forcefully, slapping her gloves on the table.
    'I must say that I agree,' said Percy Hodge. 'All my family are there from 1796 onward, as near the yew tree as they can cluster, and I'm only sorry there's no room for me, except in the new part. I shall definitely oppose any move to shift the headstones, kerbs and any other memorials.'
    Charles's chubby face began to pucker like a hurt child's, and Harold hastily intervened.
    'Mr Chairman, I think this is a very natural reaction to the suggestion, and one with which we can sympathise. I'm sure that other parishes who have faced this problem have also had to overcome some misgivings. There is the other proposition, you remember, about the sheep.'
    'Sheep?' squeaked Miss Watson.
    'I can remember sheep in the churchyard,' quavered her elderly neighbour, one of the churchwardens.
    'Thank you, thank you,' said Charles. 'It was suggested by someone that if the churchyard stayed as it is now, then a few sheep might graze