"Now then, ye idle wenches!" she cried, soon as she had crossed the kitchen threshold. "Do ye think gaping at a mutton-pasty ’ull mak it walk to th’ dining board? Martha, tha’rt allus mooning ower thy work like a goose wi’ a nicked head. An’ look at Mary yonder! Standing arms under apron when th’ house ’ull soon be full o’ hungry folk. An’ th’ Waynes allus had good appetites, sorrow or no sorrow." Nanny was setting parsley-sprigs round a dish of neat’s tongue all this time; and when this was done she climbed onto the settle and reached down piece after piece of haver-bread that was drying on the creel. The same instinct that had bidden her test the quality of Wayne’s winding sheet, while yet she was deep in sorrow for him, was with her now, and her mind was set on leaving no unremembered detail, of wine or meat or ripe October ale, to mar the burial-feast. "It’s weel to do nowt, same as some folk!" she cried, stopping to glance sourly at the progress of the maids. "I don’t know what wenches are made on nowadays, that I don’t." "Do nowt, my sakes! When my knees is dibble-double-ways wi’ weariness," cried Martha. "Hoity-toity! I’ve done as mich before breakfast ivery day o’ th’ week when I war a lass.—Mary, wilt gi’e me a hand wi’ this cheese, or mun I let it fall to th’ floor-stuns?" The maids, run off their feet already, without any help from outside, grew wild with the natter-natter of the Sexton’s wife; but awe of her kept any but the briefest snaps of anger from their tongues, and it was a relief to both when the door opened slowly and they saw Hiram Hey standing on the threshold. Clean-shaven and spruce of body was Hiram, and a certain melancholy drooping of the mouth-corners could not quench his sober gaiety of mien. "’Tis a sad day, this, for us at Marsh," he said, thrusting his head forward and sniffing the air with unctuous wonder that the women could think of victuals at all at such a time. Nanny turned quickly. "It willun’t be ony brighter for thy coming, Hiram Hey. We want no men-folk here," she cried. The maids looked from Nanny to the farm-man, and then at each other. There was a stiff breeze always when these two met, and Nanny was apt to find her match at such times. "Well, now, are ye winning forrard-like?" said Hiram, leaning against the doorway in his idlest attitude. "Ay, an’ no thanks to thee," snapped the Sexton’s wife. "It beats me to know how folk can eat an’ drink, an’ drink an’ eat, when there’s a burying. It seems a mockery o’ th’ dead, that it does—as mich as to say, ’See what it is to be wick, lad; tha’ll niver put victuals down thy throat again, same as I’m doing now.’ Ay, I’ve oft thowt it’s enough to mak a corpse turn round an’ scowl at ye." "I’ve seen thee at a burying, Hiram," said the Sexton’s wife, quietly, "an’ tha can do thy share, I’ve noticed. It’s all talk, an’ nowt but, wi’ sich as ye. Tha cannot see we’re thrang, mebbe?"