"But no doubt 'tis different if a human takes their own life," said the young man.
"Different altogether," declared Mr. Gollop. "To take your own life be to go to a party afore you'm invited--a very presumpshuss and pushing thing, to say the least. No charity will cover it. For argument's sake, we'll say as I cut my throat, and then I stand afore the Throne of Grace so soon as the life be out of me. 'Who be you?' says the A'mighty. 'Thomas Gollop, your Reverence,' says I. Then they fetch the Books and it all comes out that I've took the law of life into my own hands and upset the record and made a far-reaching mess of everything; because you must know you can't live to yourself alone, and if you lay hands on your body, you be upsetting other lives beside your own, and making trouble in the next world so well as this. So down I go to the bad place--and very well I should deserve it. I can't be sure of Masterman, but he'll hardly have the face to treat this rash corpse like a God-fearing creature, I should hope. The parish will ring with it if he do."
"Crowner's sitting now over to 'The White Thorn,'" said Tom's assistant.
"Yes; and since Jack Head's 'pon the jury, there'll be no paltering with truth. I hate the man and have little good to say of him as a general thing; but there's no nonsense to him, and though he's oftener wrong than any chap I know, he won't be wrong to-day, for he told me nought would shake him. 'Tis the feeble-minded fashion to say that them that kill themselves be daft. They always bring it in so. Why? Because the dust shall cheat justice and get so good Christian burial as the best among us. But Head won't have that. He's all for bringing it in naked suicide without any truckling or hedging. The young man was sane as me, and took his life with malice aforethought; and so he must lie 'pon Chrisomers' Hill with the doubtfuls, not along with the certainties."
As he spoke somebody approached, and Nathan Baskerville, clad in black, stood beside them.
"I want you, Gollop," he said. "Who are you digging for here? 'Tis long since Chrisomers' Hill was opened."
"For Mark Baskerville," answered the sexton stoutly. "'Tis here he's earned his place, and here he'll lie if I'm anybody."