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The sexton, on seeing a well-dressed gentleman, whose object was to attend the expected obsequies, pacing the aisle of the church, hospitably invited him to share with him the comforts of a blazing fire, which, as was his custom in winter time upon such occasions, he had kindled in the hearth of a chamber in which he was accustomed to await the arrival of such grisly guests and which communicated, by a flight of steps, with the vault below.
"Give an answer," cried the boy, "or take thy self off, thou hast no business here at night." The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might think he was a ghost. The boy cried a second time, "What do you want here? -speak if thou art an honest fellow, or I will throw thee down the steps!"
Accordingly we perched ourselves on a window-sill outside, where by raising the sash slightly we could hear and see the lecturer. All went well for a time and we were congratulating ourselves, when the old sexton discovered us. Then there was a scampering up Orange and down Henry to Fulton Street with McFarlane close after.
Sexton still stood beside his desk, watching him respectfully. "You fool!" he snarled. "Get out of here and leave me alone." Sexton departed promptly, glancing at his watch as he did so. It lacked five minutes of two. He passed Shirley Sumner in the general office.
Ward McAllister, was Brown, the sexton of Grace Church, which, for many years, had been the fashionable centre. "Arrogant old Isaac Brown," Mrs. Burton Harrison called him in her "Recollections, Grave and Gay," "the portly sexton who transmitted invitations for the elect, protested to one of his patronesses that he really could not undertake to 'run society' beyond Fiftieth Street.
The sexton was turning out the lights, and a moment later Dick found himself once more on the street, looking with a grim smile on his hunger-pinched features, at the figure of the Christ, wrought in the costly stained glass window. "One of the least of these," he muttered hoarsely to himself.
The prematurity of a conversation with my wife, in which I found that she was very favourably impressed with Mr. Percivale, must be pardoned to the forecasting hearts of fathers and mothers. As I went out for my walk the next morning, I caught sight of the sexton, with whom as yet I had had but little communication, busily trimming some of the newer graves in the churchyard.
In summer at sunrise he went to the churchyard, and from there into the woods; in winter, when the first stars appeared, he wrapped himself in his black cloak and went to Bianca's grave, and thence to one of the neighbouring villages, but he never entered anywhere, and only the sexton who admitted him to the graveyard, and the gate watchman, who opened the burgher's wicket to him, ever exchanged greetings with him.
Wait up for me. "He left and the sexton went to the road at seven, but did not see him. At 10 o'clock I heard him coming. It was very dark and he knocked sharply and quickly, as if afraid. I opened the door and he thrust a valise into my hand. It was heavy. "'Here it is, Father. Keep it till morning when I will bring the key. The valise is locked.
They give the following result: Income. 200 pews at present average-$30 a pew $6,000 Expenses. Salary $4,000 Interest 700 Music 1,200 Sexton, fuel, light, &c. 1,200 Total $7,100 When I showed the footing to Mr. Eccles he shrugged his shoulders. "We shall have to raise our pew rents," said he. "They are unconscionably low, and we must pay off our debt. Then we are all right.
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