Putting the key into a huge padlock, he turned back its rusty bolt, and the gate swung stiff on its hinges, which were thick with moss.
Then Ralph, still holding the mare's head, walked into the churchyard with Sim behind him.
“Here's a spot which has never been used,” said the old man, pointing to a patch close at hand where long stalks of yarrow crept up through the snow. “It's fresh mould, sir, and on the bright days the sun shines on it.”
“Let it be here,” said Ralph.
The clerk immediately cleared away the snow, marked out his ground with the edge of the spade, and began his work.
Ralph and Sim, with Betsy, stood a pace or two apart. It was still early morning, and none came near the little company gathered there.
Now and again the old man paused in his work to catch his breath or to wipe the perspiration from his brow. His communicativeness at such moments of intermission would have been almost equal to his reticence at an earlier stage, but Ralph was in no humor to encourage his garrulity, and Sim stood speechless, with something like terror in his eyes. “Yes, we've had no minister since Michaelmas; that, you know, was when the new Act came In,” said the clerk.
“What Act?” Ralph asked.
“Why, sir, you never mean that you don't know about the Act of Uniformity?”
“That's what I do mean, my friend,” said Ralph.