The sexton chuckled, for he had a strong sense of the ludicrous, and Van Noost's bombast amused him.
"Ay, ay," he said, laughing and coughing; "how many a man there is who is obliged to make his heels save his head for the indiscretion of his tongue! Now, I'll warrant you've been swaggering about London in praise of King James, till you got frightened to death for fear King George should get hold of you. But you're safe enough here, man, you're safe enough here. Sergeants and pursuivants are as rare here as bailiffs, and it is not likely they'll be able to track you across the hills, even if a price should be set upon your head."
"There is no price upon my head," cried Van Noost, with a strong feeling of nervous apprehension at the very idea. "They could not hurt me even if they took me; but I love my liberty, master sexton, and should pine to death if I were cribbed up in a prison-cell."
"It would take a long time to pine you down even to a moderate size," replied the sexton, in a thoughtful sort of tone. "I've dug many a grave in my day, and there's only one I recollect that would have held you. You are so fat here behind."
"I have committed no crime," continued Van Noost, anxious to disabuse his companion's mind of the idea that he might be harbouring a traitor. "I have committed no crime, I say; and the blessed English law admits that men may talk treason, though they may not do it."
"Ay, the tongue, the tongue!" exclaimed the sexton. "That's what has brought you into danger, I can see well enough. It is an unruly member, as the Bible says; but here you will be quite safe. If I have to bury you, I ought to have a crown more for the width of the grave. I had when the fat parson died, this time thirty years ago, though his heirs said they did not like to pay for his fat. But hark more people on horseback all in one day! Master, I've a notion they've tracked you close."
Poor Van Noost lost his rosy, colour in a moment; for no man liked less the idea of martyrdom than he did.
"For Heaven's sake, my good friend," he cried, as the old sexton peeped through a chink of the church door, which had been left ajar, "for Heaven's sake, cannot you put me somewhere where they will not find me? Let me go into the vestry!"
The sexton eyed him, with his quiet old cynical smile. "How fond fat men are of life!" he said. "The vestry! They'd find you there in a minute. Here, you fool, go in there down into the vaults. They'll not look there, I'll warrant."
As he spoke, he unlocked a small door which lay in a shady nook between two pilasters; and, under the impulse of fear, Van Noost hurried in, without a word, taking his chance of the old man recollecting to let him out again. He saw the head of a flight of steps before him, and was rushing down, when the sound of the key turning in the lock raised up new fears in his mind, and he paused for a moment to listen. The only sound he could hear at first was produced by the slow irregular step of the old sexton upon the pavement of the church, as he again walked towards the great door, and then a loud manly voice from without was heard, as if saying to some one at a distance--"Walk them about till we come back. The air is keen upon these hills, even at midsummer."