"So that’s what’s browt thee here, Hiram Hey?" she cried. "Tha’rt a bonnie un to come talking o’ what’s seemly i’ a house o’ death! First, to drink thyseln dizzy-crazy, an’ then to go prettying wi’ a wench that mud weel by thy own grandchild. Nay, I’ve no patience wi’ thee; tha’rt owd enough to be thinking o’ thy own latter end i’stead o’ fly-by-skying wi’ lasses, an’——" Hiram for once could find no answer, but stood ruffling the frill of hair under his clean-shaven chin and shifting his feet from side to side. "I have talked with my cousin, Nanny," came the Master’s voice from the door. Nanny turned and saw Shameless Wayne standing there, pale and quiet, with the straight downward rent between his brows which seemed to have been fixed there two nights ago for good and all. "About th’ burying, Maister?" she queried eagerly. "Aye. We are to go armed; the word has been sent round." "Now God be praised! Ye’re wise to list to what Barguest hes to tell," said the Sexton’s wife, and forgot to rate the maids, forgot the fifty little household cares that claimed attention. *CHAPTER VIII* *A STORMY BURIAL* The Wayne vault lay open to the April sky, and throstles were singing in the stunted trees, as Sexton Witherlee, infirm of step and dreamy of eye, moved softly over the graveyard stones. He stopped when he reached the vault, set down the ladder he was carrying and stood looking at the clean-swept room below. "’Tis a sweet place, a vault, to my thinking," he muttered. "So trim and peaceable the folk lie, each on his appointed shelf, with never a wrong word betwixt ’em th’ twelvemonth through. Ay, ’tis quiet ligging, an’ th’ storms pass overhead, an’ ivery now an’ again there’s what ye mud call a stir among ’em when a new shelf is filled an’ a new neighbour earned. Well, I’ve seen life a bittock, but I wod swop beds wi’ ony o’ these, that I wod." A robin came and perched on the top rung of the ladder, and eyed Sexton Witherlee sideways with a friendliness which long following after the spade had bred. "What, laddie, dost think I’m delving?" said the Sexton, chuckling feebly. "Nay, there’s to be a better burying this morn nor raw earth gives a man. ’Tis bricks an’ mortar, robin, an’ a leaded coffin for sich as Wayne o’ Marsh.—Well, then, bide a bit till I’ve straightened all up down here, an’ then I’ll scrat thee up a worm or two for thy dinner." He reached down one stiffened leg, twisted the ladder from side to side to make sure that it was safe, and began his slow descent into the vault. He passed his hand lightly over the stone doors that hid the shelves—lightly, and as if he loved each separate entry in this Book of Death. And all the while he talked to himself, soft and slow.