Chapter VI.
OBSERVING AFAR.
The old sexton pursued his way to the church without looking behind him, though made aware by the bustle around that strangers were in his rear. It was not old Joel’s way to alter his pace or his purposes for man or woman, be they who they might. Children only had any power over him; and they only as long as they were unconscious of it.
“Is the sexton one of the equality folks?” asked Letitia of White.
“What, old Joel? Really, madam, there is no saying what he is, further than that he is discontented with everybody’s ways of thinking in turn.—Joel! Joel!” he cried, as the sexton was busied in unlocking the white gate of the churchyard, “my lady asks if you are an equality man.”
The old man muttered something unintelligible while engaged with the lock; but when he looked up and met Letitia’s eye, her countenance,—not its beauty, but the sincerity of its expression,—acted as a charm upon his reserve. They exchanged smiles, and understood one another immediately. Joel did not, like Nanny White, congratulate himself aloud on having met with a congenial companion, but he felt himself happy in having done so.
“Will you please to tell me, madam, what you are here for?”
“To see the church, and to make acquaintance with you, Joel.”
“Because you are curious about my way of thinking?”
“I have no idea what your way of thinking is; but I should certainly like to know, because it is the first thing I try to find out when I make new acquaintances.”
“Then, madam, you and I shall suit. If such is your custom, you will not do as the world for the most part does; you will not first suppose that a man must be wise for having gone through all the chances and changes that can be crowded into a long life, and then think his opinions very wicked or very foolish because they may be such as you did not look for. Why, say I, should I feel and think like you? Have you been first young and then old? Have you been looked upon as a scholar in your prime and an oddity in old age? Have you been on the other half of the world, and have you now only the sunny side of a churchyard for your range? Have you had ten children round your table, and do you now come to eat your solitary crust upon their graves? If not, why should you expect me to think like you? And how will you dare to point at me and pity me because pain and pleasure have sharpened my mind’s sight to pierce further into things than you, who, may be, see only the outsides of them, or, may be, only the mists that cover them? Follow me, madam, unless your limbs are more feeble than an old man’s, as many a fine lady’s are.”