On looking round, Ralph perceived standing near him and looking over his shoulder an elderly man in the dress of a peasant well to do. He had put off his shoes and laid down his hat somewhere about the church, and by these indications Ralph concluded rightly that he was the sexton. He asked him whether it was so, however, and the old man replied, "Yea, truly, I am the sexton."
"You were not here when I was last in Coldenham," said Ralph; "what has become of Harrison, who was sexton here before you?"
The old man pointed with his finger to the pavement, saying, "Down there--he is as good as a lord now, and occupies just as much room. When he died, I was sent for by the old lady; for I come from a distance out of Dorsetshire, her own county."
"Then of course you are a great friend of hers," replied Ralph.
"Nay, why should you think so?" asked the old man.
"Because she put you in this good office," said Ralph.
"That is no reason," replied the sexton; "gifts do not always come from favor, nor fortune either. I take what I get, and am thankful. I ask not whence it comes, nor why. I can not be the friend of a great lady nor the friend of a proud lady. Good office call you it? Marry! the dead often do good to the living, and so it is with me; but the living do no good to the dead, and so in one sense the office is not a good one. It is like that of the hangman, who is said to do the last offices to a culprit; but mine go beyond his, and are the only true last offices; for I give back to the earth what the earth gave to the light, and there is no hand between mine and eternity."
The conversation had a somber hue, and Ralph sought to turn it, saying, "It seems to me that the village is much decayed since I last saw it. The people do not seem so comfortable--so much at ease, as when I was here before."
"How should they be so?" asked the sexton. "The many are always more or less dependent upon the few; and in a country village of this land, they derive their prosperity from the great folks near them. Mind, young master, I speak of prosperity--not alone of wealth--of the happiness that cheers labor, of the protection which prompts it, of the example which leads in the right way, and of the generosity which rewards those who follow it. How would you have the people prosperous here, with no one of wealth and station near them but an old woman all pride and diamonds, whose only object is to maintain her state and her two sons; and their only bounties are the riding over our fields and gardens, and the debauching of our wives and daughters? Marry! well may the fences go to decay, the thatch go to decay, and the roof-tree fall in. There is a good receipt for rendering a place desolate, and these people have found it."