Anon every man went to his own house, while Mr. Lethbridge began to fill the grave. His friend the blacksmith had been one of the bearers. He, too, stayed behind; and now Chugg lighted his pipe, and sat upon a tomb, and watched the sexton. Once more they played the part of chorus. “’Tis a wonder to see you with the spade again.” “As to that, I’m past it—have been these three year—but this particular job—well, somehow, Jonas had got a feeling that he’d cussed the chap so often in life that he couldn’t dig his pit decent; an’ I be clever yet for such an old blid, so I comed out o’ my well-earned rest. Can’t say as it hurt my mind to dig, though my rheumatics will smart for it come to-morrow.” The earth dropped from the shovel, and the coffin beneath rumbled to the thud. Old Lethbridge worked slowly, and stopped often to talk. “’Twas always said he’d got a careless way of throwing elms. An’ now an elm have throwed him. A great tree in Widecombe Park falled when he was looking t’other way, an’ a bough scat his brains out. An’ now he’m coffined in elm, an’ never good wood held a worse man.” The blacksmith smoked and shook his head. “Yet the Church feels no doubts of him. Have ’e ever marked the cocksureness of the parsons? ’Tis that I marvels at! ‘Sure and sartain hope’ be the words. When they buried Sam Pridham, the poacher—him as beat his wife and drinked the boots an’ shoes off his children’s feet—parson was just so dead positive ’bout it as when he put away my old woman, who was a holy saint o’ God, bar her temper. How can us know that it have pleased the A’mighty to take to Hisself the soul of this here Amos Thorn?” “We can’t be sure, and for my part I ban’t,” said the other. “We know mighty little of any man except this: that king and tinker breed the same fashion o’ worms come they die. The chap down there was a liar, an’ he won Dinah Hannaford from my son by a wicked trick. He told her falsehoods—’twas this dust I’m covering with honest earth that made dust of my son’s life; an’, old as I am, I be glad to bury him. If ’tis wicked, then ’tis wicked; but, any way, ’tis true.” “Don’t puff an’ fret, my dear. He’m gone now, an’ ’tis very bad for you to be so hot at your age. He’ll get his proper payment. For that matter, he have got it.” “I say us have no right to believe that God have took this man’s soul to Hisself. It ban’t justice, an’ I won’t stomach it. Nice company for the bettermost in heaven! The like of Amos Thorn—! Tchut! I can’t onderstand it.” “’Tis a very difficult question, and best left alone,” said the blacksmith, uneasily. “It be quite enough to know there is such a place. I never much like to think about it.”