"Well, you would not have the man go on whimpering all his life?" said the other; "how old are you, sexton?"
"Sixty and eight last January," answered the other, "and I have dug these graves forty years come St. John."
"Have you many old men in the parish?" asked the stranger.
"The oldest is eighty-two," replied the sexton, "and she is a woman."
"Six from eighty-two," said the stranger in a contemplative tone, "that leaves seventy-six. That will do very well."
"Will it?" said the sexton, "well, you know best; but I should like to see a bit more of your face," and as he spoke, the old man suddenly raised his lantern towards the stranger, and then burst out into a laugh, "ay, I thought I knew the voice!" he said, "and so you've come back again, captain? Well now, this is droll enough! That bone you've got your foot upon belongs to your old wet-nurse, Sally Loames, if I know this ground; and she had as great a hand in damaging you as any of the rest. She was a bad one! But what has brought you down now that all the money's gone and the property too?"
"Why, I'll tell you," answered Captain Moreton, "I'll tell you, my good old Grindley. I want to see into the vault where the coffins are, and just to have a look at the register. Can't you help me? you used always to have the keys."
"No, no, captain," rejoined the sexton, shaking his head, "no tricks! no tricks! I'm not going to put my head into a noose for nothing."
"Nobody wants you to put your head in a noose, Grindley," answered the other, "all I want is just to take a look at the coffins for a minute, and another at the register, for I have had a hint that I have been terribly cheated, and that people have put my great-grandfather's death six years too early, which makes all the difference to me; for if my mother was born while he was living she could not break the entail, do you see?"
"Well, then," said the sexton, "you can come to-morrow, captain; and I'll tell the doctor any hour you like."