"There’s old Tom Wayne put to bed there—he war a rum ’un an’ proper, they say, though he war dead a hundred year afore my time—an’ yond’s Ralph Wayne’s spot—well, he lived hot an’ he lived fast, did Ralph Wayne, an’ he died at two-score, an’ so saved a mort o’ sweating an’ unthankfulness. An’ now there’s th’ Maister come to join ’em; I mind burying his wife ten years agone—ten years!—an’ him to hev lived wi’ all his troubles until now. It ’ull by my turn next, I’m thinking—th’ young ’uns come an’ they go, an’ it doan’t hold to reason that Sexton Witherlee should be spared to bury ’em for iver." A broom stood in one corner of the vault, fashioned of heather-fagots bound to a stout handle of ash. Witherlee took the broom in his hands, and began to sweep up the rubble that lay about the floor. "Moiling an’ toiling, that’s all a man addles by keeping th’ life quick i’ him. I’m faired shamed o’ living when I come among so many decent, quiet bodies—ay, fair shamed," murmured the Sexton, and rested on his broom, and looked up to find a broad face and a sturdy pair of shoulders hanging over the edge of the vault. "How’s trade, Sexton?" said the newcomer. "Brisk, Jonas, brisk." "Well, what’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison, i’ a manner o’ speaking. ’Tis how ye look at things, I reckon, an’ there’s heads an’ tails on ivery good piece o’ money. So trade’s middling, is’t?" "Oh, ay. Other trades grow slack, but ye cannot do without Sexton Witherlee i’ Marshcotes parish. That’s what I says to Parson a week come yestermorn. ’Parson,’ says I, ’me an’ thee hev getten likely trades. Folk allus need prayers, an’ they allus need burying. Crops fail time an’ time,’ I says, ’an’ sickness follows at after famine; an’ that’s money i’ a Sexton’s breeches pockets,’ says I." "Mebbe tha’rt right, Sexton; but I’d liefer live by putting sound liquor down folk’s throats nor be shovelling earth a-top of ’em when they’ve getten past meat an’ drink. But we munnot fratch, for we’re near neighbours—me at th’ Bull, an’ thee i’ th’ kirkyard hard by, an’ each to his own trade, says I, choose who hears me say ’t.—’Tis a drear business, this o’ th’ Maister o’ Marsh. Th’ burying is fixed for twelve o’ th’ clock, they tell me." "Ay, sure; he’ll be ligged i’ bed here all ship-shape, will th’ owd Maister, come a half hour after nooin." "He’s nobbut been laid out two days an’ less, hes he? How should that come about, like? ’Tis nobbut decent I allus did say, to give a corpse its full time on th’ bier—’specially a gentle-born corpse, that looks for so mich more attention or a common un."