living, when all the others died, without fitting me also
for the work there was to do.

"Come here to the corner of the tower, miss," old Jacob went on, in his
excitement catching hold of the sleeve of my black silk jacket. "Where
we stand is a queer sort of echo, which goeth in and out of them big
tombstones. And for aught I can say to contrairy, he may be a-watching
of us while here we stand."

I glanced around, as if he were most welcome to be watching me, if only
I could see him once. But the place was as silent as its graves; and
I followed the sexton to the shadow of a buttress. Here he went into
a deep gray corner, lichened and mossed by a drip from the roof; and
being, both in his clothes and self, pretty much of that same color,
he was not very easy to discern from stone when the light of day was
declining.

"This is where I catches all the boys," he whispered; "and this is where
I caught him, one evening when I were tired, and gone to nurse my knees
a bit. Let me see--why, let me see! Don't you speak till I do, miss.
Were it the last but one I dug? Or could un 'a been the last but two?
Never mind; I can't call to mind quite justly. We puts down about one a
month in this parish, without any distemper or haxident. Well, it must
'a been the one afore last--to be sure, no call to scratch my head
about un. Old Sally Mock, as sure as I stand here--done handsome by
the rate-payers. Over there, miss, if you please to look--about two
land-yard and a half away. Can you see un with the grass peeking up
a'ready?"

"Never mind that, Jacob. Do please to go on."

"So I be, miss. So I be doing to the best of the power granted me. Well,
I were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally used to say
as I went to sleep, and charged the parish for it--a spiteful old ooman,
and I done her grave with pleasure, only wishing her had to pay for
it; and to prove to her mind that I never goed asleep here, I was just
making ready to set fire to my pipe, having cocked my shovel in to ease
my legs, like this, when from round you corner of the chancel-foot, and
over again that there old tree, I seed a something movin' along--movin'
along, without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking. You may
see the track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go along this here
finger."

"Oh, Jacob, how could you have waited to see it?"

"I did, miss, I did; being used to a-many antics in this dead-yard, such
as a man who hadn't