"To be sure I do, Coombes. And you are quite right. The resting-place
of the body, although the person it belonged to be far away, should be
respected."

"That's what I think, though I don't get no credit for it. I du believe the
people hereabouts thinks me only a single hair better than a Jack Ketch.
But I'm sure I du my best to make the poor things comfortable."

He seemed unable to rid his mind of the idea that the comfort of the
departed was dependent upon his ministrations.

"The trouble I have with them sometimes! There's now this same one as lies
here, old Jonathan Giles. He have the gout so bad! and just as I come
within a couple o' inches o' the right depth, out come the edge of a great
stone in the near corner at the foot of the bed. Thinks I, he'll never lie
comfortable with that same under his gouty toe. But the trouble I had
to get out that stone! I du assure you, sir, it took me nigh half the
day.--But this be one of the nicest places to lie in all up and down the
coast--a nice gravelly soil, you see, sir; dry, and warm, and comfortable.
Them poor things as comes out of the sea must quite enjoy the change, sir."

There was something grotesque in the man's persistence in regarding the
objects of his interest from this point of view. It was a curious way for
the humanity that was in him to find expression; but I did not like to let
him go on thus. It was so much opposed to all that I believed and felt
about the change from this world to the next!

"But, Coombes," I said, "why will you go on talking as if it made an atom
of difference to the dead bodies where they were buried? They care no more