"Who's there!" he called, and out from the porch stepped my grandfather, that had risen early and gone to the churchyard to finish digging the grave before breakfast. "Why, what on the earth is wrong with ye? I made sure the French had landed, at the least." "Couldn't be much worse if they had," said my grandfather. "Some person've a-stole my shovel, pick, and biddicks." "Nonsense!" said the Parson. "The corpse won't find it nonsense, Sir, if I don't get 'em back in time. I left 'em lying, all three, at the bottom of the grave overnight." "And now they're missing?" "Not a trace of 'em to be seen." "Someone has been playing you a practical joke, Calvin. Here, stop a moment----" The Parson ran back to his room, fetched a key, and flung it out into the yard. "That'll unlock the tool-shed in the garden. Get what you want, and we'll talk about the theft after breakfast. How soon will the grave be ready?" "I can't say sooner than ten o'clock after what has happened." "Say ten o'clock, then. This is Saturday, and I've my sermon to prepare after breakfast. At ten o'clock I'll join you in the churchyard." II My grandfather went off to unlock the tool-shed, and the Parson back to comfort Mrs. Polwhele--which was no easy matter. "There's something wrong with the parish since I've been away, and that you can't deny," she declared. "It don't feel like home any longer, and my poor flesh is shivering like a jelly, and my hand almost too hot to make the butter." She kept up this lidden all through breakfast, and the meal was no sooner cleared away than she slipped on a shawl and stepped across to the churchyard to discuss the robbery. The Parson drew a chair to the window, lit his pipe, and pulled out his pocket-Bible to choose a text for his next day's sermon. But he couldn't fix his thoughts. Try how he would, they kept harking back to his travels in the post-chaise, and his wife's story, and those unaccountable flags and splashes of whitewash. His pipe went out, and he was getting up to find a light for it, when just at that moment the garden-gate rattled, and, looking down the path towards the sound, his eyes fell on a square-cut, fierce-looking man in blue, standing there with a dirty bag in one hand and a sheaf of tools over his right shoulder. The man caught sight of the Parson at the window, and set down his tools inside the gate--shovel and pick and biddicks. "Good-mornin'! I may come inside, I suppose?" says he, in a gruff tone of voice. He came up the path and the Parson unlatched the window, which was one of the long sort reaching down to the ground.