shall be glad both of your sympathy and of your example, Mr. Grimes." "Eh? I'm mortal hard of hearing to-day, Beer? Ay-I won't object to a glass of beer, after walking all the way to Copleston at eighty year old. Maybe I wouldn't touch a drop of beer if I could get port and sherry like you. No; it's not the beer, Mr. Waldron. It's the Times. I'm not going to change 'em, and I'm not going to begin. And Mr. Skull-he'll say the same." "I should not expect you to change." "I can see how the land lies, Mr. Waldron, with the half of an eye, for all my ears is hard. You want to get rid of the parson, and you want to get rid of me.” "Well ?" "Well, sir, now you look here. I'm not denying that Parson Skull is a bit old and ancient for his years, and his sermons aren't what they used to be. There's that sermon he preaches about the roaring lion that isn't half as good as it used to be forty year ago; and to tell you the downright honest truth, without a bit of a lie, I don't know where he'd be at times if it wasn't for me. But I'm another sort, I am, and I'll pull tenor, and dig a grave, and say amen, and bury ye and marry ye, with any man dead or alive. I've been at it sixty year, so I ought to know. You've no call to want to get rid of I. But I tell you what, Squire Waldron. I'll get rid of my own self, bell, bones, and all, if so be you'll make it worth your while. And what I do to-day, Parson Skull 'll do to-morrow; you see if you don't see." "Worth my while? You mean you want to be bought out, I suppose? But suppose I don't think it worth my while?" I "Well, sir, I'll just keep on as I be for twenty year to come. buried an old chap last week that was ninety-nine, and he was always a weakly sort o' chap, and that I never were." "I think you would certainly be the better for a few years of rest, Mr. Grimes, and it's true that you and I might not be able to pull quite so well together as we used to in the belfry. And you have earned a pension, too, after marrying and burying your neighbours for sixty years. You need not have come to me in such a money-or-your-life sort of fashion, for I think your proposal perfectly reasonable and fair. I'll think it over, and, on your release from office, allow you enough to make you comfortable for twenty years, or more, as the case may be. You're not married, I believe?" "No, sir, I aren't, though there's no knowing what mightn't happen any day to a single man. 'T aren't the fault of the wenches I haven't married twice a year. So don't you go to make no mistake about that there." "What is your pay now?" Nothing worth mentioning. You look here, Squire Waldron, I aren't neither a profligate nor a prodigal. But I know my own vally to the parish, and I'll be as content like an archdeacon with five hundred pound down on the nail, and a hundred pound every year. That's my vally, Squire Waldron, and for that I'll never bury another mortal man." "Five hundred pounds, and a hundred a year! May I ask how long it is since you left the 'George'? You really rate your value to the parish so highly, and you consider your danger to me so great, that you are not to be bought out under five hundred pounds and a hundred a year?" "Well, sir-no. There's an empty cottage belonging to you as I've got an eye on, and I'd ask to have thrown in, rent-free." "Anything more?" "Well, sir, being dry, I'd like a pint o' beer thrown in." "Let me see a hundred a year, five hundred pounds down, a house rent-free, and a pint of beer. I think that pint of beer is exorbitant, Mr. Grimes." "Say a quart then, Squire Waldron. I aren't the man to cry off a fair bargain for a thing like a pint, one way or t'other one." "Mr. Grimes, we Americans are a simple people, but there are bounds to even our simplicity. And you have a way of asserting your claims and your value that I don't understand. If I am to do good in this parish I must not let myself be bullied and I must not let myself be done." "Very good, Squire Waldron. Then, if you won't give me my rights and my dues, I must go to them as will, that's all. I come to you first, natural, you being here, and being a Waldron comes before a Reid, as the tombs do testify. But you won't do much good in this here parish if you think to do me with 'Merican ways." "I do not understand you, Mr. Grimes. Who else could---assuredly nobody else give you what you expect me to give you for nothing? After all, I think you had better keep your place. It will cost less on the whole." "I thought you'd take a hint-" "I never take hints, Mr. Grimes." "Then, if you let I resign, 'twill cost you just five hundred pound, and the rent of a cottage, and a hundred a year,” "And a pint of beer," "Thank ye, Squire. But if you let I stay in, 'twill cost you just -Copleston. That's a hint and a half, I do seem." I suppose you are not quite drunk, Mr. Grimes: I see you can stand." "And I can, too. Them that hide can find; but them can find that don't hide." "No doubt. Well? You've got something to say to me about Copleston. Time's money in my country. Every minute you keep me waiting will be so much out of your retiring-pension. Now, then, out with it all at once, and look alive." "So, sir, says I to myself, 'If one man can get all Copleston by groping about in a lot of old lumber, it seems to me I'd best turn antiquity, too.' So I roked and I roked till one fine day I found something in a box where it hadn't been put a hundred years ago." "Well ?" "So, sir, I put this thing to that thing, and there I were. 'Twas one of them old chests you used to rummage, and 'twasn't likely anybody would go rummaging there again. There! That may be what you call a hint, but it's what I call a pretty strong one. And if you think best not to take it, I'll go to them as will. Ay, as willand that's the very word." "What was it you found ?" Something I But what's the "Something I'll sell you for what I've named. found in a box that none but you ever groped in. use? You know. But I aren't going to show you, with you and me here all alone. If you'll come with me to the 'George,' where there's folks about, you'll see 'tisn't a cock nor a bull I've brought to the fair." "I shall not do anything of the kind. got it about you, because you've come here Whatever it is, you've on purpose to show it "Eh?" asked old Grimes, with his hand to his ear. "Ay-at the 'George,' where there's folks, you see. Ay, sure enough, at the 'George.'" "I understand you to say that I have been hiding away something in the belfry, and that you have found it. Is that what you mean?" "Eh?" "And that you are afraid of my destroying it, if you show it me without witnesses-so that you may lose your hold over me? How can I tell what it's worth till I see it? Take it to Jackson-he's my lawyer here. Or, if you won't show it me here and now, take it to anybody you please. That's my last word. If it proves to be any secret of my own, it will be worth my while, I suppose, to pay you to hold your tongue." "Ay, Squire that's true. 'Twill be worth your while, forwell, since you put it that way, here it be." Old Grimes, very slowly, put on his spectacles, felt in the pocket of his jacket about a dozen times, and at last produced a document which he continued to hold with both his hands. "Now you look here, Squire Waldron," said he. "If you'd heard me out, you'd have know'd by this time 'twas not you but my Parson put that thing here in that chest there. And I tell you that, so you may know if you go to play me false there'll be Parson Skull to swear to knowing of this here thing as well as me." At last Waldron held the document of which the sexton had made such a mystery in his hands and before his eyes. He started for a moment, but read it carefully through, and then said, without the least change of tone, "Mr. Grimes, if you had brought me this without any attempt at a sale, I would have given you more than you asked, as a reward for your honesty. As things are, I buy it of you on your own terms. If I fail, talk as much as you please. Here is your document-keep it, for security, till everything is arranged and you are satisfied. I see you are quite sharp enough to understand. To-morrow morning you will hear from me. . The estate will bear this charge any how," thought he, as he watched old Grimes down the road. The sexton had been so taken aback at having gained all he had asked for instead of the half which was all he had ventured to expect, that, for once, he had become not only deaf but dumb. Why had he not asked for a thousand pounds, two hundred a year, two cottages, and a whole gallon of beer? CHAPTER XXXII. Love her? I love her so that if she look Hate her? I hate her so, that if she threw Why, I would give my life, my heart, my soul GIDEON had bidden Helen prepare for a journey to Hillswick the very next day after his interception of Waldron's letter. But, before next morning, business, or whatever he called such, had made him change his mind, and the same reason continued so long that Helen almost thought the matter had passed by. Almost, but not quite, for she had begun to know Gideon Skull better than to think that he acted without purpose or reason. Whatever she almost thought, her instinct made her feel that clouds were gathering, and she was afraid. Long silence had told her that she would never see or hear from, in all likelihood never hear of, Walter Gray again. He might have chosen the right path-she must needs suppose so-but he had left her to unbearable solitude. The moment she found that she needed support, and had thought to find the support she needed, it had been wrenched away from her. She thought she could understand what tempts people to kill themselves. And yet she knew all the while that if Walter Gray came back again, and offered her his whole life once more, she would refuse at once and without an instant's doubt all he could offer her. He had done right to leave her; she could not wish him to return. It was good to think that somebody was left in the world to do right, however cruel right might be. She had ample time for thought, and was by nature incapable of mere reverie. Like Waldron, she had to face life as it was, and as it must be, and what it might be made-he himself had woke her, effectually if rudely, from dreaming of what might have been. She was bound to think of the worst that could happen—that Copleston should come into the hands of Gideon Skull, and that he should call |