"Nay, why should you think so?" asked the old man.
"Because she put you in this good office," said Ralph.
"That is no reason," replied the sexton; "gifts do not always come from favor, nor fortune either. I take what I get, and am thankful. I ask not whence it comes, nor why. I can not be the friend of a great lady nor the friend of a proud lady. Good office call you it? Marry! the dead often do good to the living, and so it is with me; but the living do no good to the dead, and so in one sense the office is not a good one. It is like that of the hangman, who is said to do the last offices to a culprit; but mine go beyond his, and are the only true last offices; for I give back to the earth what the earth gave to the light, and there is no hand between mine and eternity."
The conversation had a somber hue, and Ralph sought to turn it, saying, "It seems to me that the village is much decayed since I last saw it. The people do not seem so comfortable--so much at ease, as when I was here before."
"How should they be so?" asked the sexton. "The many are always more or less dependent upon the few; and in a country village of this land, they derive their prosperity from the great folks near them. Mind, young master, I speak of prosperity--not alone of wealth--of the happiness that cheers labor, of the protection which prompts it, of the example which leads in the right way, and of the generosity which rewards those who follow it. How would you have the people prosperous here, with no one of wealth and station near them but an old woman all pride and diamonds, whose only object is to maintain her state and her two sons; and their only bounties are the riding over our fields and gardens, and the debauching of our wives and daughters? Marry! well may the fences go to decay, the thatch go to decay, and the roof-tree fall in. There is a good receipt for rendering a place desolate, and these people have found it."
"I fear so, my good man," replied Ralph; "but you speak freely dangerous things."
"I fear not, master," replied the old man, with a quiet smile; "although, to say truth, I might not speak such things if you were not a traveling stranger in the place."
"I am nearer akin to those you mention than you are aware of," replied Ralph, turning toward the door; "but be not afraid, I will not betray you, for I think much as you do."
"I am not the least afraid," replied the sexton, following him slowly, and taking up his shoes and hat as he went; "I shall do very well, whatever is said of me."
Ralph walked on, and took the little path branching to the right from the church porch, which led in the direction of the house that Moraber had described. It was at no great distance beyond, so that you could see it from the little gate of the church-yard; and Ralph was surprised, as he advanced through the old elms that shaded the little graves, at the neatness and air of comfort which the dwelling presented. It was larger and more roomy, too, than most of the other houses near; for the doctor and the lawyer had not yet sprung up in every village in the land, and the parsonage was the only good-looking edifice in Coldenham, except the church.