“I had your promise,” I said sternly. “Eh, eh? What’s that ye say?... I have been asleep.” “Man, do you call _that_ sleep?----” “Eh?... Ah, yes!... It is my weakness, sir, and ye shall pardon it,” he replied; and I truly believe that for the moment the creature felt a sort of contrition. Suddenly there came over me a feeling nearer to compassion than to disgust; God knows I am backward to judge those He has seen fit to set in the world with me; and I turned to him earnestly. “’Tis for your own good,” I said in a moved voice; “good Heaven!... Tell me what you were looking at yonder.” The weakness following that vile ecstasy seemed to have made him tractable. “’Tis not in the classics,” he muttered; “ye may walk through them without resistance ... how then should there be a mutilation?... I cannot see.”... This I set down in pity to his lunacy, and he continued to mutter fragments. “A mischance to the mortal remains ... but the hinds in yonder vault were too terrified ... and then, what correspondence.... _I tell ye, sir, ye know nothing_ ... why does it not reunite?”... And as he chattered thus, I wondered that I, who dreaded no spectre, should dread exceedingly the mind that could so conjure one up. On the morrow I again sought Watt the keeper; I had now a purpose, and as he packed hampers in a flat-bottomed boat he again sought to ward off my questions. “What did he mean by mutilation? You said nothing to me,” I demanded; and “Ye didn’t ask me,” Watt replied; “----come, Bess!” “And what’s this about a vault?”--“Ay, that’ll be th’ vault i’ th’ churchyard,” he answered; “ye’ll find th’ door there yet, all red wi’ rust and green wi’ verdigris.” “Don’t fool me,” I cried; and with that the keeper turned fairly on me. “So ye willn’t let it bide? Very well.--There’s little gossip i’ Skelf-Mary now, by reason o’ there being few folk, but I’ll be rid o’ what I know. They say it’ll be Eustace he sees, that was a priest; but ye needn’t tak’ that fro’ me. When he had th’ vault oppened he asked this and that and t’other, and if he says th’ men was flayed, he’s right.--They couldn’t sort out which were which--ye understand--and th’ breed’s as ugly living as dead to my way o’ thinking. He talked about nowt but ‘knees’ ... faugh! Whose knees he wanted ye know as much as me; but th’ sexton lives ower at Windlesea. Mysel’, I’m a decent wed man, and tak’ no count o’ ghosts and such, ye understand?”...