'I heard of no one having died.' 'She lived in another hamlet, my dear,' returned the sexton.

'Three mile away.' 'Was she young ?' 'Ye-yes' said the sexton; not more than sixty-four, I think.

David, was she more than sixty-four ?' David, who was digging hard, heard nothing of the question.

The sexton, as he could not reach to touch him with his crutch, and was too infirm to rise without assistance, called his attention by throwing a little mould upon his red nightcap.
'What's the matter now ?' said David, looking up.
'How old was Becky Morgan ?' asked the sexton.
'Becky Morgan ?' repeated David.
'Yes,' replied the sexton; adding in a half compassionate, half irritable tone, which the old man couldn't hear, 'you're getting very deaf, Davy, very deaf to be sure!' The old man stopped in his work, and cleansing his spade with a piece of slate he had by him for the purpose--and scraping off, in the process, the essence of Heaven knows how many Becky Morgans--set himself to consider the subject.
'Let me think' quoth he.

'I saw last night what they had put upon the coffin--was it seventy-nine ?' 'No, no,' said the sexton.
'Ah yes, it was though,' returned the old man with a sigh.