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'Ah! so say the gentlefolks who come down here to look about them,'
returned the old man, shaking his head, 'but I say otherwise. ‘It's a
pretty custom you have in this part of the country,’ they say to me
sometimes, ‘to plant the graves, but it's melancholy to see these things
all withering or dead.’ I crave their pardon and tell them that, as I take
it, 'tis a good sign for the happiness of the living. And so it is. It's
nature.'
'
Perhaps the mourners learn to look to the blue sky by day, and to the
stars by night, and to think that the dead are there, and not in
graves,' said the child in an earnest voice.
'
Perhaps so,' replied the old man doubtfully. 'It may be.'
'
'
Whether it be as I believe it is, or no,' thought the child within herself,
I'll make this place my garden. It will be no harm at least to work here
day by day, and pleasant thoughts will come of it, I am sure.'
Her glowing cheek and moistened eye passed unnoticed by the sexton,
who turned towards old David, and called him by his name. It was
plain that Becky Morgan's age still troubled him; though why, the
child could scarcely understand.
The second or third repetition of his name attracted the old man's
attention. Pausing from his work, he leant on his spade, and put his
hand to his dull ear.
'
'
Did you call?' he said.
I have been thinking, Davy,' replied the sexton, 'that she,' he pointed
to the grave, 'must have been a deal older than you or me.'
'
Seventy-nine,' answered the old man with a shake of the head, 'I tell
you that I saw it.'
'Saw it?' replied the sexton; 'aye, but, Davy, women don't always tell
the truth about their age.'
'
That's true indeed,' said the other old man, with a sudden sparkle in
his eye. 'She might have been older.'
'I'm sure she must have been. Why, only think how old she looked.
You and I seemed but boys to her.'
'
She did look old,' rejoined David. 'You're right. She did look old.'
Call to mind how old she looked for many a long, long year, and say if
'
she could be but seventy-nine at last - only our age,' said the sexton.
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