On one side the church-door, as you entered, was an enclosed place underneath the belfry, that did for the vestry and for Clerk Bumford’s den. He kept his store of candles in it, his grave-digging tools (for he was sexton as well as clerk), his Sunday black gown, and other choice articles. On the other side of the door, not enclosed, was the nook that contained the organ. I sat down at once. But I had come too late; for in half-an-hour’s time the notes of the music and the keys were alike dim. Just then Bumford entered.
“Oh, you be here, be you!” said he, treating me, as he did the rest of the world, with slight ceremony. “I thought I heered the organ a-going, so I come on to see.”
“You were not indoors, Bumford, when I called for the key.”
“I were only in the field at the back, a-getting up some dandelion roots,” returned old Bumford, in his usual resentful tone. “There ain’t no obligation in me to be shut in at home everlasting.”
“Who said there was?”
“Ain’t it a’most too dark for you?”
“Yes, I shall have to borrow one of your candles.”
Bumford grunted at this. The candles were not strictly his; they were paid for by the parish; but he set great store by them, and would have denied me one if he could. Not seeing his way clear to doing this, he turned away, muttering to himself. I took my fingers off the keys—for I had been playing while I talked to him—and followed. Bumford went out of the church, shutting the door with a bang, and I proceeded to search for the candlestick.
That was soon found: it always stood on the shelf; but it had no candle in it, and I opened the candle-box to take one out. All the light that came in was from the open slits in the belfry above. The next thing was to find the matches.