Sextant

“ The youth called out the second time: ‘What do you want here? Speak if you are an honest fellow, or I’ll knock you down the stairs.’ The sexton thought: ‘He can’t mean that in earnest,’ so gave forth no sound, and stood as though he were made of stone. Then the youth shouted out to him the third time, and as that too had no effect he made a dash at the spectre and knocked it down the stairs, so that it fell about ten steps and remained lying in a corner. Thereupon he tolled the bell, went home to bed without saying a word, and fell asleep. ”

“ To be this night sung by some Papist's grave?
SEXTON.
Papist or not I cannot surely say,
I ask'd no questions.
CRAWFORD.
Having cause, no doubt.
To be well satisfied no harm would ensue.
SEXTON.
No harm. In this retired nook it cannot
Annoy the living; and for the departed.
Nought can disturb their rest.
CRAWFORD.
Hast thou not heard of restless souls returning?
Perhaps thou 'st seen it, during thirty years
In which thou hast been sexton of this parish.
SEXTON.
In all that time I ne'er could say with certainty
That aught of such a nature pass'd before me ”

“ Now the American sexton—the verger—is a very mighty man indeed. Parsons come and go, but the sexton stays for ever. If he is not very tall and dignified in black broad-cloth, he is generally fat and fussy in the same. He picks out waiting sinners and seats them according to his boundless caprice. He knows just the kind of stray sinner who may be ushered into a charitable pew, and he knows the pews that decline to receive stray sinners under any consideration. ”

“ The sexton was a meek, acquiescing little man, of a bowing, lowly habit, yet he had a pleasant twinkling in his eye, and if encouraged, would now and then hazard a small pleasantry, such as a man of his low estate might venture to make in the company of high churchwardens and other mighty men of the earth. ”

“ Apart from sectarian issues, a sexton is the most mettlesome man that grows, and not at all to be subdued to the ignoble uses of a hoe. This sexton was an agony to my father in the sanctuary, and an anguish to my mother in the garden. ”

“ SEXTON believes he knows a thing or two; O'BRIEN is understood to be something of an orator. FLYNN will show House how all these qualities may be combined in one man. Does it by the tiresome twenty minutes, the lamentable half-hour; popping up on every question with comically judicial air; talking on with fatal feeble flatulent fluency, whilst GILL sits nursing his hat awaiting his turn.
Alack for Irish humour, eloquence and deviltry, that it should come to this! ”

“ The Sexton grinned horribly a ghastly smile. "Will you take your Pible oath you ton't want them to raise the tevil with?" "Willingly," said Mr. Escot, smiling; "I have an abstruse reason for the inquiry."
"Why, if you have an obtuse reason," said the Sexton, who thought this a good opportunity to show that he could pronounce hard words as well as other people; "if you have an obtuse reason, that alters the case." ”

“ CHAPTER XXIX. THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON ’ In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago—so long, that the story must be a true one, because our great-grandfathers implicitly believed it—there officiated as sexton and grave-digger in the churchyard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by the emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world ”

“ Mr. Jarlcot, the attorney, would "go bail" he had picked up some sense in his travels; and honest Turnbull, the host of the George and Dragon, said heartily:
"We must look out something for him to put his hand to. Now's the time to make a man of him."
The end of it was that he became, among other things, the sexton of Golden Friars.
He was a punctual sexton. He meddled with no other person's business; but he was a silent man, and by no means popular. ”

“ The sexton's face beamed with joy. "Yes, indeed, and well married. I have a good wife. You'll see her when you call on me."
"A good wife--you are a happy man!" said Freyer in a low tone.
"She has a great deal to do just now for the little one."
"Ah--you have a child, too!"
"And such a beautiful one!" added Anastasia. "A lovely little girl! She will be a Mary some day. But the sexton's wife is spoiling her, she hardly lets her out of her arms."
"A good mother--that must be beautiful!" said Freyer, with a strange expression, as if speaking in a dream. ”

“ As I was exerting myself to find some plausible subterfuge, the sexton turned to me and said: “Fellow, you look more like a disreputable soldier-lad than like a painter.” I was no longer accustomed to such speeches, and yet there was nothing for it but to swallow the taunt. I shook my head softly and replied, “Oh, you knave! give me a brush and colours, and I will paint a fool in a twinkling who shall resemble you throughout.”
The parson made a joke of the matter, and reminded both [10] of us that it is not meet to tell each other unsavoury truths in so holy a spot. ”

“ It was the farmer coming home. He was a very worthy man; but he had one great peculiarity—namely, that he could not bear to see a sexton. If he saw one he was made quite mad. That was why the sexton had gone to say good-day to the farmer’s wife when he knew that her husband was not at home, and the good woman therefore
put in front of him the best food she had. ”

“ As if dead priests were laughing in their stalls!
At length the sexton, hearing from without
The tumult of the knocking and the shout,
And thinking thieves were in the house of prayer,
Came with his lantern, asking, "Who is there?"
Half choked with rage, King Robert fiercely said,
"Open: 'tis I, the King! Art thou afraid?"
The frightened sexton, muttering, with a curse,
"This is some drunken vagabond, or worse!" ”

“ The eldest laughed when he heard this, and thought to hims elf: ‘Good heavens! what a ninny my brother is! he’ll never come to any good; as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.’ The father sighed, and answered him: ‘You’ll soon learn to shudder; but that won’t help you to make a living.’
Shortly after this, when the sexton came to pay them a visit, the father broke out to him, and told him what a bad hand his youngest son was at everything: he knew nothing and learnt nothing. ”

“ Sextons have greatly improved within the last half century. In old times, they kept up too close an intimacy with young surgeons; and, to keep up their spirits, in cold vaults, they formed too close an alliance with certain evil spirits, such as gin, rum, and brandy. We have greatly improved, as a class, and are destined, I trust, to still greater elevation. ”

“ The sexton was originally regarded as the keeper of the holy things devoted to Divine worship: he is appointed by the minister or parishioners according to custom; and his salary is according to the custom of each parish, or is settled by the parish vestry. In the case of Olive v. Ingram it was held, that a woman is as capable of being elected to this office as a man, and that women may have a voice in the election. The duty of a sexton is to keep the church and pews cleanly swept and sufficiently aired; to make graves, and open vaults for the burial of the dead ”

“ Sexton suddenly dashed in, and, with back-handed stroke at Wolmer, went for the Times who had adopted and improved upon the Viscount's genial remarks. Assault admirably planned; carried on with irresistible vigour, sweeping down earlier resistance of Speaker. Showed what Sexton can do when so deeply moved as to forget himself, and resist besetting temptation to play the fatal windbag.
An hour-and-half's tussle all round House; at end Irish held the field, and, without dissentient voice, Times article declared to be "gross and scandalous breach of privileges of House." ”

“ When accident first introduced our Sexagenarian to H. M. W. she was young and lovely, ingenuous and innocent. By the proper exercise of her talents, she might have been an ornament to society, and useful to the world. Her decline of life might have tranquilly been passed under the shadow of her own vine, honoured and beloved. If she exists, she can have no other reflections but those which must be truly mortifying. ”

“ The office of sexton is hereditary, descending from father to son; and when the line fails, great indeed is the difficulty of inducing another family to undertake its unpleasant duties, involving, as it is supposed, too familiar an association with the dead and with the other world to be at all beneficial. Though the prospect of fees is good, and perhaps every family in the village offers six gallons of unpounded rice to start the sexton in his new and certainly useful career, it is difficult to find a candidate. ”

“ There was death-like stillness all over the House as Mr. Sexton put his question—picking his words slowly and deliberately. If men were not so anxious and so shocked there might have been some demonstration of the vehement anger which was felt in so many breasts as Mr. Sexton brought out the words which put in collocation in the mind of the unfortunate lunatic the idea of attempting to kill Mr. Gladstone, and the phrase of Sir Henry James during the debate on the Home Rule Bill. ”

“ Non sumito, nisi vocatus: let no man presume to be an undertaker, unless he have a vocation—unless he be called. If these are not the words of Puddifant, to whom I shall presently refer, I have no other conjecture to offer. Though, when a boy, I had a sort of hankering after dead men’s bones, as I have already related, I never felt myself truly called to be a sexton, until June, 1799. ”

“ And finally word got around the eastern seaboard about Sextus. "A competent man, yes. Drinks on the job. Wouldn't have him as a busboy."
Worse than the mere prospect of unemployment was the notoriety. Coldly sober, Sextus had fled panic-stricken to the west coast, vaguely determined to become a beach-comber or an oyster-fisherman or whatever they did out there.
He stared now at the blue slip and turned in to a florist shop. He broke his last five-dollar bill to buy a pink carnation for his buttonhole then headed down the sunny walk to the hotel. ”

“ However, my feelings were unnoticed or disregarded by Mr Sexton, who, like other American planters, did not believe that negroes were susceptible of love or sorrow.
“Mr Sexton had a daughter, who resided in the house with him, and took charge of his domestic affairs. The proprietor of the adjoining estate, whose name was Lusher, loved her, and wished to [Pg 65] marry her, but Mr Sexton would not consent to their union, and prohibited all correspondence between them. However, notwithstanding this, they sometimes met in secret, and often wrote to each other. ”

“ The Sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but, as he never came back, she got frightened, and woke up the Lad.
‘Don’t you know what has become of my husband?’ she asked. ‘He went up into the church tower before you.’
‘No,’ answered the Lad. ‘There was somebody standing on the stairs opposite the belfry window, and, as he would neither answer me nor go away, I took him to be a rogue and threw him downstairs. Go and see if it was your husband; I should be sorry if it were.’
The woman hurried away and found her husband lying in the corner, moaning, with a broken leg. ”

“ After school-time it was not the place of the schoolmaster, but of the parson of the parish, or by deputy churchwardens, or failing them the clerk, and (if he were out of the way) the sexton, to impress a certain tone of duty on the young ones. Especially the sexton need not even call his wife to help, if he would but have the wit to cultivate more young thoughtfulness, by digging a grave every other day, and trusting the Lord for orders. ”

“ The dog and other irrational animals may also possess spoken language, as the only proof that we have to the contrary, is the fact that we cannot understand the sounds that they make. [1] We have an example in this chapter of the humor of Sextus, who after enlarging on the perfect character of the dog, remarks, "For which reason it seems to me some philosophers have honoured themselves with the name of this animal," [2] thus making a sarcastic allusion to the Cynics, especially Antisthenes. ”

“ Sexton, Mr. Douce says, was presented to Henry by Cardinal Wolsey, and the anecdote related by Cavendish of his having given another Fool, who, it has been observed, was called Williams, to the king after his disgrace, and the poor wretch's attachment to his master is well known. It is manifest from these accounts that the Fool had a man to wait upon him; for we find John Emyson frequently noticed as "the man that waits or attends upon Sexton," "the keeper of the King's Fool," "Sexton's man," and in others, "Sexton's servant." ”

“ After the ceremony was over, while they were yet in the church, he called for wine, and drank a loud health to the company, and threw a sop which was at the bottom of the glass full in the sexton's face, giving no other reason for this strange act, than that the sexton's beard grew thin and hungerly, and seemed to ask the sop as he was drinking. Never sure was there such a mad marriage; but Petruchio did but put this wildness on, the better to succeed in the plot he had formed to tame his shrewish wife. ”

“ Business done.—Tommy declines to make room for his Uncle Grandolph; even rudely repulses avuncular advances.
Tuesday.—Sexton magnanimously relieved Mr. G., John Morley, and, by implication, Squire of Malwood and other Members, from embarrassing imputation. Sometimes, when gentlemen in Prince Arthur's suite have nothing nastier to say, they sketch lurid pictures of Mr. G. and the rest drawn at wheels of Sexton's chariot. All very well, they say, to talk of Cabinet Meetings, and statesmanship at Irish Office. The real boss, as Tim would put it, the arbiter of situation, is Sexton. ”