For our Lord plainly said to 'is disciples arter he came out o' the tomb--'Behold my hands and my feet,--handle me and see,'-- an' to the doubtin' Thomas He said--'Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing.' David, you mark my words!--them as 'as their bodies burnt in crematorums is just as dirty in their souls as they can be, an' they 'opes to burn all the blackness o' theirselves into nothingness an' never to rise no more, 'cos they'se afraid! They don't want to be laid in good old mother earth, which is the warm forcin' place o' the Lord for raisin' up 'uman souls as He raises up the blossoms in spring, an' all other things which do give Him grateful praise an' thanksgivin'! They gits theirselves burnt to ashes 'cos they don't _want_ to be raised up,--they'se never praised the Lord 'ere, an' they wouldn't know 'ow to do it _there_! But, mercy me!" concluded Twitt ruminatingly,--"I've seen orful queer things bred out of ashes!--beetles an' sich like reptiles,--an' I wouldn't much care to see the spechul stock as raises itself from the burnt bits of a liar!" Helmsley hardly knew whether to smile or to look serious,--such quaint propositions as this old stonemason put forward on the subject of cremation were utterly novel to his experience.

And while he yet stood under the little porch of Twitt's cottage, there came shivering up through the quiet autumnal air a slow thud of breaking waves.
"Tide's comin' in,"-- said Twitt, after listening a minute or two--"An' that minds me o' what I was goin' to tell ye about Tom o' the Gleam.
After the inkwist, the gypsies came forward an' claimed the bodies o' Tom an' 'is Kiddie,--an' they was buried accordin' to Tom's own wish, which it seems 'e'd told one of 'is gypsy pals to see as was carried out whenever an' wheresoever 'e died.

An' what sort of a buryin'd'ye think 'e 'ad ?" Helmsley shook his head in an expressed inability to imagine.
"'Twas out there,"-- and Twitt pointed with one hand to the shining expanse of the ocean--"The gypsies put 'im an' is Kiddie in a basket coffin which they made theirselves, an' covered it all over wi' garlands o' flowers an' green boughs, an' then fastened four great lumps o' lead to the four corners, an' rowed it out in a boat to about four or five miles from the shore, right near to the place where the moon at full 'makes a hole in the middle o' the sea,' as the children sez, and there they dropped it into the water.

Then they sang a funeral song--an' by the Lord!--the sound o' that song crept into yer veins an' made yer blood run cold!--'twas enough to break a man's 'art, let alone a woman's, to 'ear them gypsy voices all in a chorus wailin' a farewell to the man an' the child in the sea,--an' the song floated up an' about, 'ere an' there an' everywhere, all over the land from Cleeve Abbey onnards, an' at Blue Anchor, so they sez, it was so awsome an' eerie that the people got out o' their beds, shiverin', an' opened their windows to listen, an' when they listened they all fell a cryin' like children.

An' it's no wonder the inn where poor Tom did his bad deed and died his bad death, is shut up for good, an' the people as kept it gone away--no one couldn't stay there arter that.