'He was. He was five hundredweight if 'a were a pound. What with
his lead, and his oak, and his handles, and his one thing and
t'other'--here the ancient man slapped his hand upon the cover
with a force that caused a rattle among the bones inside--'he half
broke my back when I took his feet to lower en down the steps
there. "Ah," saith I to John there--didn't I, John?--"that ever
one man's glory should be such a weight upon another man!" But
there, I liked my lord George sometimes.'
''Tis a strange thought,' said another, 'that while they be all
here under one roof, a snug united family o' Luxellians, they be
really scattered miles away from one another in the form of good
sheep and wicked goats, isn't it?'
'True; 'tis a thought to look at.'
'And that one, if he's gone upward, don't know what his wife is
doing no more than the man in the moon if she's gone downward.
And that some unfortunate one in the hot place is a-hollering
across to a lucky one up in the clouds, and quite forgetting their
bodies be boxed close together all the time.'
'Ay, 'tis a thought to look at, too, that I can say "Hullo!" close
to fiery Lord George, and 'a can't hear me.'
'And that I be eating my onion close to dainty Lady Jane's nose,
and she can't smell me.'
'What do 'em put all their heads one way for?' inquired a young
man.
'Because 'tis churchyard law, you simple. The law of the living
is, that a man shall be upright and down-right, and the law of the
dead is, that a man shall be east and west.
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