By this time, all excitement had died out of the village, as the crime had been so thoroughly discussed that there was no more to be said about the matter. In their stolid bovine way, the rustics accepted the positive fact that their late spiritual adviser was dead and buried--accepted, also, the evident truth that the murderer would never be caught and punished. This being the case, they dismissed the past, and looked eagerly forward to the future when the new incumbent would arrive. It was reported that a vicar had already been appointed by the Bishop and that he had a family, and would make the Vicarage a much more lively place than it had been in Mr. Leigh's time. Oh, there was plenty to talk about and _The Hendle Arms_ was filled with conversational yokels from morning until evening.
On the way to the station, Rupert stumbled across Titus Ark, who grinned in a toothless manner, touched his shabby hat, and shuffled along in a manner surprisingly spry for a man of eighty-odd years of age. Hendle stopped to give him a sixpence for snuff, to which the ancient was much addicted.
"You miss Mr. Leigh, Titus," he said, pityingly, for the old man was a lonely figure in the midst of the new generation.
"Hor! Hor! Hor!" croaked the aged sexton. "Why should I miss him Squoire when he bain't dead?"
"Why, Titus, you buried him--that is, you helped to place the body in the family vault. Poor Mr. Leigh could not have been buried alive."
"Who said as he was alive, Squoire? I never did."
"No, he bain't. Hor! Hor! Hor! Crack that nut, Squoire!" and the ancient shuffled along the dry dusty road, chuckling to himself.
Hendle shrugged his shoulders, wondering if it would be necessary to lock up Titus in a lunatic asylum. He appeared to be quite crazy, and talked in so confused and contradictory a manner that no meaning could be extracted from his speech. Evidently his brain was far gone in decay, and although so far he had kept his legs, he would shortly be bedridden. Ark's office as sexton was a sinecure, as his grandson, an active young fellow, dug the graves, and attended to funeral details. The activities of Titus were confined to appearing in the churchyard and telling what he knew about the deceased. On the whole, the old creature was harmless enough, so Rupert banished from his mind the idea of shutting him up, satisfied that, so long as his grandson looked after him, he could be permitted to be at large. Ark's incomprehensible talk reminded Hendle of Wordsworth's poem--"We Are Seven." No more than the child therein could Titus understand what death meant. And this was strange, considering that he was an old and accomplished sexton.