"What a strange thing Life is," said Nancy.
"A strange thing indeed," said old Canthrop. "A strange thing."
"The sun makes one red, not yellow," said the sexton. "But it's small colour he's showing now, poor boy, I can tell you. In them furrin parts knives aint reserved for cheese. And he'd have written for sure."
"Ah, sexton," said John to escape the perpetual topic, "I can see you're a man of ideas."
"Well, Mr Gaffekin, I may not have been to Oxford, as I say, but I does think. As I said to Parson once before a burial. 'You and I, sir,' I said, 'are thinking men.' It goes with the business."
"It must be dreadful work," said John Oggs. "Digging holes for dead men. Well, we must all go under."
"Ay, indeed," said old Canthrop.
"Don't speak from the bottom of your throat like that," said Peter Smith. "It gives me the horrors, with all this talk about death and all."
"Death should not give anyone the horrors," said the sexton, who attended church regularly. "It is but the Portal, Of a better life beyond."
"But it's rather nice to have the horrors sometimes," came Nancy's voice from behind the bar. "I wonder why!"