irst thing to attend to. And if it ever happened
him to come across a parson who was as full of heaven outside as he
was inside his surplice, he would keep his garden in order for nothing
better than his blessing.

I knew of no answer to be made to this. And indeed he seemed to be aware
that his conversation was too deep for me; so he leaned upon his spade,
and rubbed his long blue chin in the shadow of the church tower, holding
as he did the position of sexton, and preparing even now to dig a grave.

"I keeps them well away from you," he said, as he began to chop out a
new oblong in the turf; "many a shilling have I been offered by mothers
about their little ones, to put 'em inside of the 'holy ring,' as we
calls this little cluster; but not for five golden guineas would I do
it, and have to face the Captain, dead or alive, about it. We heard that
he was dead, because it was put in all the papers; and a pleasant place
I keeps for him, to come home alongside of his family. A nicer gravelly
bit of ground there couldn't be in all the county; and if no chance of
him occupying it, I can drive down a peg with your mark, miss."

"Thank you," I answered; "you are certainly most kind; but, Mr. Rigg, I
would rather wait a little. I have had a very troublesome life thus far,
and nothing to bind me to it much; but still I would rather not have my
peg driven down just--just at present."

"Ah, you be like all the young folk that think the tree for their
coffins ain't come to the size of this spade handle yet. Lord bless you
for not knowing what He hath in hand! Now this one you see me a-raising
of the turf for, stood as upright as you do, a fortnight back, and as
good about the chest and shoulders, and three times the color in her
cheeks, and her eyes a'most as bright as yourn be. Not aristocratic,
you must understand me, miss, being only the miller's daughter, nor
instructed to throw her voice the same as you do, which is better than
gallery music; but setting these haxidents to one side, a farmer would
have said she was more preferable, because more come-at-able, though not
in my opinion to be compared--excuse me for making so free, miss, but
when it comes to death we has a kind of right to do it--and many a young
farmer, coming to the mill, was disturbed in his heart about her, and
far and wide she was known, being proud, as the Beauty of the Moonshine,
from the name of our little river. She used to call me 'Jacob Diggs,'
beca