"True, most true, William."
"And I ask myself, as each corpse goes in, how many more pits will open afore mine."
"'Tis hid with your Maker, William."
"Thank God I'm a good old man and ripe and ready," said Mr. Baggs. "Not," he added, "that there's any credit to me; for you can't be anything much but good at ninety-two."
"While the brain is spared we can think evil, William."
"Not a brain like mine, I do assure 'e."
A little girl ran into the churchyard—a pretty, fair child, whose bright hair contrasted with the black she wore.
"They have come and father sent me to tell you, Mr. Churchouse," she said.
"Thank you, Estelle," he answered, and they returned to the open space together. The child then joined her father, and Mr. Churchouse, saluting the dead, walked to the first mourning coach and opened the door.
It was a heavy and solid funeral of Victorian fashion proper to the time. The hearse had been drawn by four black horses with black trappings, and over the invisible coffin nodded a gloomy harvest of black ostrich plumes. There were no flowers, and some children, who crept forward with a little wreath of wild roses, were pushed back.