As the doctor walked out of the gate, Biggins the carpenter, a hard-faced man, who emitted a strong odour of glue from his garments, walked up, tucking a piece of sandpaper upon which he had been writing, and his square carpenter's pencil, that he had pointed with four chops of his chisel before starting, into one of his pockets. "Thy savoy cabbages look well, neighbour," he said quietly, as being the most sympathetic thing he could think of at the moment. Then he held out his hand, shook the other's warmly, without a word, and then stood by him, breathing heavily, and looking down at the ground. Five minutes passed like this, without a word on either side, Morrison manifesting no impatience, and Biggins showing no disposition to go; for it was his way of showing sympathy to a friend in distress, and Morrison felt it so to be, and thanked him in his heart. At last the carpenter, who was used to funerals, and who was now next door to being clerk, heaved a heavy sigh, stooped down, picked a strand from the grass plot, and held it at arm's length, looking at it fixedly for a minute or so, before saying, huskily-- "All flesh is grass, Tom Morrison--flowers of the field--cut down-- withered. Amen." He said it in a slow, measured way, and with a nasal twang, the last word closing his disconnected speech after quite an interval; and then the two men stood together for some minutes in silence. At last Biggins spoke again, but without raising his eyes, looking down at the garden path, as if for a place to plant the bent he had broken from its roots. "Poor wife! She's terribly cut up, Tom." There was another interval of silence, and then Biggins said, as if to himself, and still gazing at the path-- "White cloth, and silver breastplate and nails?" There was another pause, and then Tom said in a weary, dull way-- "As if it was one of your own, my lad--as if it was one of your own." "Good-bye, Tom Morrison--good-bye, lad," said Biggins, holding out his hand once more, but with his back half turned to his neighbour "Good-bye," said Tom, squeezing the honest, hard fist held out to him in a manly grip; and, with a sigh, Biggins was turning off, when a word from the wheelwright arrested him. "Come down here, lad, away from the house," said Tom, huskily. Biggins looked up now, his heavy face lighting up. Tom Morrison wanted him to do something for him. He could do that, if he could not show sympathy. They walked down the neatly-kept garden, till they stood under the willow tree, where, after a few minutes' silence, Tom Morrison said huskily-- "They've made you saxon now, haven't they, Joe?" "Yes, and ought to be clerk as well, but it don't seem like being saxon in these newfangled days, when the ground's cut from under a man, and there's no chance of putting in a simple, honest amen anywhere. Ah, I don't know what poor, dear old parson would have said to see the change. He'd think we'd all gone over to Popery."