"Wonnerful form he's in," whispered Taverner. "I hope it ban't the last flicker of the candle, and we shall hear presently the cold have took him off. He'd be quite a loss in company." Weekes nodded. Certain words let drop by the venerable chronicler had fallen upon the hungry soil of his mind and taken root there. Now he desired further speech with Valentine, and presently offered him an arm upon his way. "I must get you to sing that song to me," he said. "You'm a wonderful old man, Val. To think that you can sing and mind a tune and the words and everything, and you up eighty-three or more." "'Tis so. Not a note out of place, I believe, though the high ones roll up into my head and miscarry somewhat. Still there 'tis: I've got it; and a many others I've got as was thought pretty singing in my young manhood, but wouldn't be vitty now. The times be altered, and if I singed a thing or two I know right well, you'd think I was a very coarse-minded old chap. Ideas have changed." "Yes; but human nature hasn't. Did you punish frail folk then? There was skimmitty riding, wasn't there?" "Certainly there was; and a thing oftener done, because dreadfuller and more solemn-like, was burying. 'Twas a very heart-shaking affair, and the manner of it was this. Suppose a man and woman did wrong, owing to the power of nature upon them, or the husband being away from home, or some other natural cause, then, if 'twas found out against 'em, the people rose up and acted a funeral. Everything was done decently and in order. But you had to do it on private land, else 'twas an unlawful assembling, like a prize-fight or a cock-fight, and might get you into trouble. When the land was chosen, skilled hands made two puppets as much like the parties as their craft could; and they was dressed in grave-clothes, or else common clothes, and put in coffins. Then some man who was up to it, read the service, and the dolls were nailed home into their boxes, and buried underground with all the dignity of real dead people. The service was read, and if a chap had a clever tongue, he'd preach a bit and lash the erring victims all he could. I've knowed cases when a man faced it out and laughed at his own burying, and stood beer to the mourners; and I've known cases when the parties was saved by it, and turned to the Almighty, and was forgiven by all men; and I've known cases where the burial was a mistake and the man and woman were both quite innocent. A choir and undertaker and all, mind you. And, besides such things as that, I've seen witches ducked, and scolds bridled--in fact, 'twould puzzle me to tell you what I haven't seen in my time."