“Then I’ll set Tom Candlish to talk to her again, and then you’ll leave it to me.”
“Nay, you won’t, doctor. I know you better than that. But he’s a bad ’un. So’s the squire. They’re both bad ’uns. I know more about ’em than they think, and if Squire Luke warn’t churchwarden, I could say a deal.”
“And you will not?” said the doctor. “Well, I must be going. I say, though, did you get me that skull?”
“Nay, nay, nay,” said the old man, shaking his head, as he lit his pipe, and began smoking very contentedly, with his eyes half closed. “I couldn’t get no skulls, doctor. It would be sackerlidge and dessercation, and as long; as I’m saxton there shall be nothing of that kind at Duke’s Hampton. Bowdles doos it at King’s Hampton: but no such doings here.”
“But I want it for anatomical purposes, my good man.”
“Can’t help it, sir. I couldn’t do it.”
“Now what nonsense; it’s only lending me a bone.”
“You said sell it to you,” said the old man sharply.
“Well, sell it. I’ll buy it of you.”
“Nay, nay, nay. What would Parson Salis say if I did such a thing? He’d turn me out of being saxton, neck and crop.”