"You've got your part, sir, and I've got mine. You up into the pulpit, and I down into the grave. But it'll be all the same by and by." "I hope it will," I answered. "But when you do go down into your own grave, you'll know a good deal less about it than you do now. You'll find you've got other things to think about. But here comes your wife. She'll talk about the living rather than the dead." "That's natural, sir. She brought 'em to life, and I buried 'em--at least, best part of 'em. If only I had the other two safe down with the rest!" I remembered what the old woman had told me--that she had two boys _in_ the sea; and I knew therefore what he meant. He regarded his drowned boys as still tossed about in the weary wet cold ocean, and would have gladly laid them to rest in the warm dry churchyard. He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the back of his hand, and saying, "Well, I must be off to my gardening," left me with his wife. I saw then that, humorist as the old man might be, his humour, like that of all true humorists, lay close about the wells of weeping. "The old man seems a little out of sorts," I said to his wife. "Well, sir," she answered, with her usual gentleness, a gentleness which obedient suffering had perfected, "this be the day he buried our Nancy, this day two years; and to-day Agnes be come home from her work poorly; and the two things together they've upset him a bit." "I met Agnes coming this way. Where is she?" "I believe she be in the churchyard, sir. I've been to the doctor about her." "I hope it's nothing serious." "I hope not, sir; but you see--four on 'em, sir!" "Well, she's in God's hands, you know." "That she be, sir." "I want to ask you about something, Mrs. Coombes." "What be that, sir? If I can tell, I will, you may be sure, sir." "I want to know what's the matter with Joe Harper, the blacksmith." "They du say it be a consumption, sir." "But what has he got on his mind?" "He's got nothing on his mind, sir. He be as good a by as ever stepped, I assure you, sir." "But I am sure there is something or other on his mind. He's not so happy as he should be. He's not the man, it seems to me, to be unhappy because he's ill. A man like him would not be miserable because he was going to die. It might make him look sad sometimes, but not gloomy as he looks." "Well, sir, I believe you be right, and perhaps I know summat. But it's part guessing.--I believe my Agnes and Joe Harper are as fond upon one another as any two in the county." "Are they not going to be married then?" "There be the pint, sir. I don't believe Joe ever said a word o' the sort to Aggy. She never could ha' kep it from me, sir." "Why doesn't he then?" "That's the pint again, sir. All as knows him says it's because he be in such bad health, and he thinks he oughtn't to go marrying with one foot in the grave. He never said so to me; but I think very likely that be it."