Madam Crowl’s Ghost And The Dead Sexton

On the evening before the tragedy came to light–trifles are always remembered after the catastrophe–a boy, returning along the margin of the mere, passed him by seated on a prostrate trunk of a tree, under the bield of a rock, counting silver money. His lean body and limbs were bent together, his knees were up to his chin, and his long fingers were telling the coins over hurriedly in the hollow of his other hand. He glanced at the boy, as the old English saying is, like the devil looking over Lincoln. But a black and sour look from Mr. Crooke, who never had a smile for a child nor a greeting for a wayfarer, was nothing strange.