"We'll call and inquire as we pass,--that is, if you are inclined to go with me."
"I have just had a message from that cottage that stands all alone on the corner of Mr. Barton's farm--over the cliff, you know--that the woman is ill, and would like to see me. So the sooner we start the better."
"I shall have done my breakfast in five minutes, papa. O, here's mamma!--Mamma, I'm going out for a walk in the rain with papa. You won't mind, will you?"
"I don't think it will do you any harm, my dear. That's all I mind, you know. It was only once or twice when you were not well that I objected to it. I quite agree with your papa, that only lazy people are _glad_ to stay in-doors when it rains."
"And it does blow so delightfully!" said Wynnie, as she left the room to put on her long cloak and her bonnet.
We called at the sexton's cottage, and found him sitting gloomily by the low window, looking seaward.
"I hope your wife is not _very_ poorly, Coombes," I said.
"No, sir. She be very comfortable in bed. Bed's not a bad place to be in in such weather," he answered, turning again a dreary look towards the Atlantic. "Poor things!"
"What a passion for comfort you have, Coombes! How does that come about, do you think?"
"Then I suppose he likes making people comfortable if he makes people like to be comfortable."
"Then when he takes it out of your hands, you mustn't think he doesn't look after the people you would make comfortable if you could."
"Yes, surely. And you mustn't want to take his out of his hands, and go grumbling as if you would do it so much better if he would only let you get _your_ hand to it."
"I daresay you be right, sir," he said. "I must just go and have a look about, though. Here's Agnes. She'll tell you about mother."
He took his spade from the corner, and went out. He often brought his tools into the cottage. He had carved the handle of his spade all over with the names of the people he had buried.
"Tell your mother, Agnes, that I will call in the evening and see her, if she would like to see me. We are going now to see Mrs. Stokes. She is very poorly, I hear."
"Let us go through the churchyard, papa," said Wynnie, "and see what the old man is doing."
"Very well, my dear. It is only a few steps round."