with comments on the organist and the
sacrilege. I turned into the 'Fishing Smack' inn, a likely place to
get what news was to be had, and found the asthmatical old landlord
haranguing some fishermen who were drinking their ale on a settle.

'It's my b'lief,' said the old man, 'that Tom was arter somethink
else besides that air jewelled cross. I'm eighty-five year old come
next Dullingham fair, and I regleck as well as if it wur yisterdy
when resur-rectionin' o' carpuses wur carried on in the old
churchyard jes' like one o'clock, and the carpuses sent up to Lunnon
reg'lar, and it's my 'pinion as that wur part o' Tom's game, dang
'im; and if I'd a 'ad _my_ way arter the crouner's quest, he'd never
a' bin buried in the very churchyard as he went and blast-phemed.'

'Where would you 'a buried 'im, then, Muster Lantoff?' asked a
fisher-boy in a blue worsted jerkin.

'Buried 'im? why, at the cross-ruds, with a hedge-stake through his
guts, to be sure. If there's a penny agin' 'im on that air slate'
(pointing to a slate hung up on the door) 'there must be ten
shillins, dang 'im.'

'You blear-eyed, ignorant old donkey,' I cried, coming suddenly
upon him, 'what do you suppose he could have done with a dead body in
these days? Here's your wretched ten shillings,--for which you'd sell
all the corpses in Raxton churchyard.'

And I gave him half-a-sovereign, feeling, somehow, that I was doing
honour to Winifred.

'Thankee for the money, Mister Hal, anyhow,' said the old creature.
'You was allus a liberal 'un, you was. But as to what Tom could 'a
dun with the carpus, I'm allus heer'd that you may dew anythink
_with_ any-think, if you on'y send it carriage-paid to Lunnon,'

I left the house in anger and disgust. No tidings could I get of
Winifred in Raxton or Graylingham.

By this time I was thoroughly worn out, and obliged to go home. My
anxiety had become nearly insupportable. All night I walked up and
down my bedroom, like a caged animal, cursing Superstition, cursing
Convention, and all the other follies that had combined to destroy
her. It was not till the next day that the true state of the case was
made known to me in the following manner: At the end of the town
lived the widow of Shales, the tailor. Winifred and I had often, in
our childish days, stood and watched old Shales, sitting cross-legged
on a board in the window, at his work, when Winifred would whisper to
me, 'How nice it must be to be a tailor!'

As