“No,” said he, “nobody never meddles with ’em, ’cept a lawyer’s clerk now and then; and they’re very civil, and just copies out something, and gives me a shilling, and then goes.”
Septimus Hardon took the hint in its first acceptation, while the mouldy old sexton removed one hand from his pocket to accept the proffered shilling held to him, before his visitors were about to take the second part of the hint.
As they moved off through the damp old church, Septimus Hardon wondered whether, upon some bright morning half a century before, his father and mother had knelt before that altar and been made one. He sighed as he walked on, meeting in the entrance a tall, gentlemanly—looking man who was passing in.
“What’s to be done next, Matt?” said Septimus, in a dispirited tone.
“Pint of porter and crust o’ bread-and-cheese,” said the old man decidedly. “I’m faint, sir—got a fit of my chronics; but it’s taking me the wrong way to-day; I’m hungry, and you must want support. Keep your chin in the air, sir; we can’t win every time. You’ve had two tries this morning, and one’s come all right. That register looks suspicious, certainly; but after all you can’t even go and swear that your old people were married in that church; and even if you could, and had the copy of the stiffikit, that ain’t all we want, for it don’t prove that you weren’t a year old then.”
“Hi!” cried a voice behind them; and upon the cry being repeated, they both turned to find that the old sexton was telegraphing them to come back, by wagging his head in the direction of the church-door.
“What’s up now?” said old Matt when they reached him.
“Parson wants to see you in the westry,” was the reply.
Anxiously following the old man, Septimus Hardon found himself in the presence of the gentleman he had encountered at the door.
“I think,” said he, “that you have been complaining of the bad state of our registers, and really we deserve it. I have only been here a few weeks, and have done but little towards getting them right. However, I have quite fifty loose leaves and pieces arranged here ready for pasting back, though I can assure you it is no light task.”