They hit water halfway down. It came up fast, and within twenty minutes it was over the base of the coffin and the coffin was floating and rocking.
The old men said this was the worst of it and the site would have to be given up.
He wrote a number down. He had measured with a tape while the pit was open: from the water surface to the lip, three feet two.
They lifted it, pumped the hole out, and reburied on dry ground at the foot of the hill.
The next spring the earth in front of the grave was wet. The ground around it was dry — only that patch. He dug a small test hole.
Water at three feet two.
The third year they moved it up the mountain. A hundred metres higher, on rock; the drilling took three days.
The fourth year the ground in front of the grave was wet.
He had not brought a tape, so he dug with the spade and stood the handle in the hole to measure against.
Three feet two.
He went back to the old house. The well in the yard was still there, disused, with an iron cover on it. He lifted the cover and let a stone down on a string.
From the water surface to the wellhead: three feet two. His great-grandfather sank that well forty years before the grave was dug.