This was
long years ago. Now, throughout the whole countryside it was known
that no corpse passed through Rehoboth gates after four o'clock.

* * * * *

'You'll happen look in an' see th' owd woman afore yo' go wom','
said Joseph to Mr. Penrose, as the minister finished his entry of
the funeral in the chapel register, 'hoo's nobbud cratchenly
(shaky).'

Joseph and his wife lived in the lower room of a three-storied
cottage at the end of the chapel, the second and third stories of
the said cottage being utilized by the Rehoboth members as
Sunday-schools.

Entering, Mr. Penrose saw the old woman crouching over the hearth
and doing her best to feed the fast-dying fires of her vitality.
As she raised her wrinkled face, crowned with white hair and
covered with a coloured kerchief, a gray shawl wrapped round her
lean and stooping shoulders, she smiled a welcome, and bade him be
seated.

'So yo'n put away owd Chris,' she said, as soon as Mr. Penrose had
taken his seat by her side. 'Well, he were awlus one for sleepin'.
Th' owd felley would a slept on a clooas-line if he could a' fun
nowhere else to lay hissel. But he'll sleep saander or ever naa.
They'll bide some wakkenin' as sleep raand here, Mr. Penrose. Did
he come in a yerst, or were he carried?'

'He was carried,' answered the minister, somewhat in uncertainty
as to the meaning of the old woman's question.

'I were awlus for carryin'. I make nowt o' poor folk apein' th'
quality, and when they're deead and all. Them as keeps carriages
while they're wick can ride in yersts to their berryin' if they
like, it's nowt to me; but when I dee I's be carried, and noan so
far, noather.'

This moralizing on funerals by the sexton's wife was a new phase
of life to Mr. Penrose. He had never before met with anyone who
took an interest in the matter. It was true that in the city from
which he had lately come the question of wicker coffins and of
cremation was loudly discussed; but the choice between a hearse
and 'carrying' as a means of transit to the tomb never dawned on
him as being anything else than a question of utility--the
speediest and easiest means of transit.

After the deliverance of her mind on the snobbishness of poor
people in the use of the hearse, she continued:

'It'll noan be so long afore they've to carry me, Mr. Penrose. I
towd Joseph yesterneet that his turn 'ud soon come to dig my grave
wi' th' rest; and he said, "When