"Sexton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who died by his own hand {197} in 1770, at the age of seventeen, is one of the most wonderful examples of precocity in the history of literature. His father had been sexton of the ancient Church of St. Mary Redcliff, in Bristol, and the boy's sensitive imagination took the stamp of his surroundings. He taught himself to read from a black-letter Bible. He drew charcoal sketches of churches, castles, knightly tombs, and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... The polite sexton conducted the strangers up the center aisle and put them into a good pew. The church was not full, but was filling rapidly. Our party bowed their heads for the preliminary private prayer, and so did not see the great ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... anything. I—I shall have to see to things for the funeral, you know. And don't forget to thank your mother for the cheese. It looks real good, and Georgie doos like it the best of anything for breakfast. I guess I'll get on my bonnet, and go to see Abel Mound, the sexton." ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... Nearer home, the old sexton was chattering about the six gravestones raised in Portchester churchyard to these six dead infants. He had been sent there to choose a spot in which to lay the mother, and was full of the shock it gave him to see that line ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... poor old drunken Jem White the sexton, many years since, when on the "battlements" of Oundle Church; Oundle being the market town for the three villages ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... childish play and matured humor." Two brothers who have lost their sisters appear, and then an insolent giant, swaggering with a double-edged sword and attended by an enamored fool, and finally a knight-errant devoting his fortune to pay the stingy sexton for the burial of a victim of poverty; they are now hunting for the princess, the sisters, and the beloved lady, and to free them from the sorcerer; none of them succeed in the effort, except the knight, ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... his pockets and standing first on his heels and then on his toes. "Who are her best people? Take our first-rate painters, writers, composers . . . . Who are they? They were all of aristocratic origin. Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Gontcharov, Tolstoy, they were not sexton's children." ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... outburst of laughter, but not from Robbie. There were two other occupants of the parlor—Reuben Thwaite, who had never been numbered among the regenerate, and had always spent his Sunday mornings in this place and fashion; and little Monsey Laman, whose duty as schoolmaster usually embraced that of sexton, bell-ringer, and pew-opener combined, but who had escaped his clerical offices on this Sabbath morning by some plea of indisposition which, as was eventually perceived, would only give way before liberal doses of the medicine kept at the sign of ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... sent for, and the Clerk, and the Sexton, with bell, book, and candle. They lit the candle, and opened the book (I think it was a Latin Grammar, which they judged would be enough to scare any demon), and rang the bell; and then the Parson, with his heart in his boots, advanced ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... death by a military tribunal. According to Czech papers, Kotek was buried among ordinary criminals outside the cemetery. The grave of the innocent martyr was not even marked with his name, and his wife was not allowed to visit it, because the military authorities forbade the sexton of the church to allow any one to see the graves of those executed ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... wretches! had soiled and marred Whatever to womanly nature belongs; For the marriage tie they had no regard, Nay, sped their mates to the sexton's yard, (Like Madame Laffarge, who with poisonous pinches Kept cutting off her L by inches) - And as for drinking, they drank so hard That they drank ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the head of the coffin and began the service; behind him the sexton had taken up his position with folded hands. On either side sat the officers and men, holding their helmets on their knees and looking on with serious countenances. The old woman knelt crouching on a prie-dieu, and hid her face in her ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... Quaker worship, does not appear; but he waited for something to be said. While waiting for this, he dropped into a sound sleep, and slept through the entire service, and would have slept on, and been fastened into the meeting-house, had not the sexton discovered him. ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... seen a play every day this week Ill sign when we are once to come to study how to excuse King is offended with the Duke of Richmond's marrying Mrs. Stewart's sending the King his jewels again Much difficulty to get pews, I offering the sexton money My people do observe my minding my pleasure more than usual My wife this night troubled at my leaving her alone so much Never was known to keep two mistresses in his life (Charles II.) Officers are four years behind-hand unpaid ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... in 1812, was sexton of a church and porter in the State bank. Extreme poverty prevented Andrew from receiving any schooling, and at the age of ten he was apprenticed to a tailor. A gentleman was in the habit of visiting the shop and reading to the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... arch of the vault. Observing my surprise, and perceiving the cause, my uncle was much annoyed at the circumstance; but it was too late the cords had been removed, and my grandmother had sunk to the bottom. My uncle interrogated the sexton after the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... vicar's week, or an audit-clerk's holiday: I drop upon the ruined abbey, now indeed with scarcely a vestige of its former beauty remaining, but still used as a burial-place; being a bit of an antiquary, I rout up the sexton, (sexton, cobbler, and general huckster,) resolved to lionize the old desecrated precinct: I find the sexton a character, a humourist; he, cobbler-like, looks inquisitively at my caoutchouc shooting-shoes, and hints that he too is ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... substantially assented to by the court, that a woman is capable of serving in almost all the offices of the kingdom, such as those of queen, marshal, great chamberlain and constable of England, the champion of England, commissioner of sewers, governor of work-house, sexton, keeper of the prison, of the gate-house of the dean and chapter of Westminster, returning officer for members of Parliament, and constable, the latter of which is in some respects judicial. The office of jailor is frequently exercised ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... has been schoolmaster and sexton here, I could neither do much, nor say much, in his favor, to the Council, because for some years past they were not satisfied or pleased with his services.(1) Thereupon when he asked for an increase of salary last ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... the female; "it is old Goodman Powheid, who has the charge of the muniments," (meaning probably monuments,) "that is, such part of them as you English have left standing; I mean the old sexton of the kirk of Douglas, who can tell more stories of these old folk, whom your honour is not very fond of hearing named, than would last us from ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... through the half-opened shutters. Not a thought was in her mind; it was just a dark whirlpool of crowding images; and she watched the people passing along the street, Dan Targatt's team hauling a load of pine-trunks down to Hepburn, the sexton's old white horse grazing on the bank across the way, as if she looked at these familiar sights from the other ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... through the deserted, silent streets of Potsdam. The brilliant cavalcade moved as slowly and solemnly as a funeral procession toward the church, the lower vault of which contained the coffin with the remains of Frederick. The sexton and his assistants, bearing the large bunch of keys and a blazing torch, conducted the emperor through the dark and silent corridors, and opened the heavy, clanking iron doors leading into the vault. Napoleon entered. For a moment he stood still on the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... to their camp four miles below Ukiah, and finding there a unique kind of assembly-house, desired to enter and examine it, but was not allowed to do so until I had gained the confidence of the old sexton by a few friendly words and the tender of a silver half dollar. The pit of it was about 50 feet in diameter and 4 or 5 feet deep, and it was so heavily roofed with earth that the interior was damp and somber as a tomb. It looked like a low tumulus, and was provided with a tunnel-like ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... Medici'), now visiting the afflicted and the destitute, now carrying consolation to the home of the mourner. John Alexander was a man to whom East Anglian Nonconformity owes much. In the old city there was a good deal of young intelligence, and a good deal of it amongst the Noncons. Dr. Sexton was one of the Old Meeting House congregation, as was Lucy Brightwell, a lady not unknown to the present generation of readers. To a certain extent a Noncon. is bound to be more or less intelligent. He finds a great State Establishment of religion wherever ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... Unfortunately this same register, which ought to record the exact day of July 1624 on which little George was baptized here in the old church, no longer mentions him, since, more than a hundred years after his time, the wife of the Sexton of Fenny Drayton, running short of paper to cover her jam-pots, must needs lay hands on the valuable Church records and tear out a few priceless pages just here. So, although several other brothers and sisters followed George and ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... alone and throw two or three notes in the darkness, seized by a singular mirth, awakened one knew not why. All the peasants in the neighborhood then thought that the bell had been bewitched; and no one except the Priest and the Sexton came near the bell-tower. ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... Fast-day, and it was just before sermon; but, Lord! how all the people in the church stared upon me to see me whisper to Sir John Minnes and my Lady Pen. Anon I saw people stirring and whispering below, and by and by comes up the sexton from my Lady Ford to tell me the news, (which I had brought) being now sent into the church by Sir W. Batten in writing, and passed from pew to pew. But that which pleased me as much as the news, was, to have the fair Mrs. Middleton at our church, who indeed is a very beautiful lady. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... rain came, and Charles Copeman, who had, as already indicated, a passion for digging—caught, perchance, in boyhood from his father's sexton—dug a funk-hole from the enemy shell-fire. McInerney helped him. Now this was not an ordinary funk-hole. It was a very splendid and elaborate hole, and no one was allowed to come near, lest he cause its perfection to crumble away. So, to dry ourselves after the rain, we all dug, and the Desert-Gods ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... are but a notary bound up with a sexton; you make me pity you. Am I to teach you your part? You are ugly; be terrible, your ugliness will be forgotten. You are old; be energetic, your age will be overlooked. You are repulsive; be threatening. Since you cannot be the noble horse, who neighs proudly in the midst of his wives, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... afflicted. The mortality here last season (the autumn of 1829) has been variously stated in the public prints at from five to seven thousand, who died of the yellow fever in the space of about ten weeks. This statement, however, is erroneous; as, from information which I received from the sexton of the American grave-yard, and from the number of fresh graves which I saw there, I am inclined to think that the total amount falls short of 2500, out of a resident population of less than 40,000 souls. About 700 were buried in the American grave-yard, and perhaps double ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... Charles Dickens wrote to Forster: "Chigwell, my dear fellow, is the greatest place in the world. Name your day for going. Such a delicious old inn facing the church—such a lovely ride—such forest scenery—such an out-of-the-way rural place—such a sexton! I say again, Name your day." This is surely sufficient recommendation for any place; and when one knows that the "delicious old inn" is still standing, and that the village is as rural and as pretty as when Dickens wrote over sixty ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... and the congregation had dispersed. I was making my way into the church to take a last look at a famous fourteenth-century tomb. Not a soul was visible; but the sound of a pick and the sight of fresh earth announced that the sexton was at work digging a grave. I walked to the spot. A bald head, the shining top of which was now level with the surface of the ground, raised the hope that he would prove to be a sexton of the old school. I was ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... institutions. During Mr. Hoffman's life they had attended regularly, and Paul had belonged to a Sunday-school, Jimmy being too young. The church they had formerly attended being in Harlem, they could not of course go so far, but dropped into one not far from Union Square. They were shown seats by the sexton, and listened attentively to the services, though it must be confessed that Jimmy's attention was occasionally diverted to his new clothes, of which he was not a little proud. Mrs. Hoffman felt glad once more to find herself enjoying religious privileges, ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... without hesitation a short, stout person arrayed in a wrinkled frock coat and wearing the white tie and gold spectacles that invariably garb the members of such quasi-clerical professions as a Shadchen, a sexton or the collector of subscriptions for a charitable institution. Indeed, as Rashkind combined all three of these callings with the occupation of a real-estate broker, he also sported a high silk hat of uncertain vintage and a watch-chain ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... and when the street was cleared and the sexton was about to lock up, the girl slipped out of the church and down to her own little house. In the friendly shelter of her room she took off her gay attire and laid it away, and then sat down at the window and looked dully out. For her, the light of ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... published a volume of ballads which he described as the work of Rowley, a priest of Bristol in the fifteenth century, and which he affirmed he had found in an old chest in the crypt of the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol, of which his father was sexton. They gave proofs of so rich and precocious a genius, that if he had published them as his own works, he would "have found himself famous" in a moment, as Byron did forty years afterwards. But people resented the attempt to impose ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... to send the sexton with him and let him have the pick and shovel from the cemetery. I gave him food and thanked God as I watched him eat, that grace was working ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... restorations of 1640 and 1712 have obliterated all appearance of antiquity. Bishop Giuseppe Maria Bottari, the last restorer, used so many inscribed slabs in repairing the interior and building the campanile that he was nicknamed "the sexton of inscriptions." There was a cruciform baptistery to the west, the remains of which were destroyed in 1850 in connection with the harbour works. To the north of the cathedral is the communal cistern, which covers a great part of the site of the early church ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... TAY PAY, in the interesting Sunday journal he admirably edits, reproaches me because, in this particular page of history, "Mr. SEXTON," he says, "is derided constantly and shamefully." Anglice: Occasionally when, in a faithful record of Parliamentary events, SEXTON's part in the proceedings must needs be noticed, it is gently hinted that among his many admirable qualities terseness of diction is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... proper length, yet finding the patience of the listeners all too short! The degenerate descendants carried the day, however, the most bigoted of their opposers becoming disabled by rheumatism. The old sexton, resignation to inevitable evils being a lesson he had had much opportunity to learn, submitted with a good grace, though very much of opinion that fires in a church were an absurdity and a waste. The ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... her, and entered into conversation about the church and burial-ground. She was ready enough to talk, and almost the first words she said informed me that her husband filled the two offices of clerk and sexton. I said a few words next in praise of Mrs. Fairlie's monument. The old woman shook her head, and told me I had not seen it at its best. It was her husband's business to look after it, but he had been so ailing and weak for months and months past, that he had hardly been able to crawl into church ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... replied Wardle. 'About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... little country churches, he observed that each parson, with his sexton, was busily engaged in decorating his church; and when he came to the road which leads to Boesjo Cloister, he observed that all the poor of the parish were coming with armfuls of bread and long candles, which they had received at ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... there was a hearty cheer followed by frantic handshakes. The incident pleased him, and he spoke to each man singly, calling him by name. The sheriff was one of them, and the clerk of the court, and the old negro sexton of the church. There was a fervour in their congratulations which brought the warmth to his eyes. He was glad that the men who had known him in his poverty should rise so ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... nearest family scrapes together every farthing they can call their own, an' what's still wanting, that they borrow from some rich man. They run themselves into debt over head and ears; they're owing money to the pastor, to the sexton, and to all concerned. Then there's the victuals, an' the drink, an' such like. No, sir, I'm far from speaking against dutifulness to parents; but it's too much when it goes the length of the mourners having to bear the weight of it for the ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... extremely touched in the secret places of her warm heart by the way in which those who had known her from her childhood were proud and glad of her success. All round about the news had spread; strangers came "from beyond Burnley" to see her, as she went quietly and unconsciously into church and the sexton "gained many a half-crown" for pointing ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... spell. The two trembled just a little, but answered bravely, "I do," in the proper places, and then it was over. They shook hands with the doctor, and promised to come hear one of his sermons; and with much trepidation they paid him two dollars, which he in turn paid to the sexton. And then they went outside, and drew a great breath of relief. "It wasn't half as bad as I expected," ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... gazed upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round, And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground, 'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyous sound, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich, green mountain-turf ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... antiquated hymn-books, which were lying about in great numbers. But one day, while I was teaching in the church, I looked for a paper mark in the Catechism of one of the boys, which I could not immediately find; and my old sexton, who was past eighty (and who, although called Appelmann, was thoroughly unlike his namesake in our story, being a very worthy, although a most ignorant man), stooped down to the said niche, and took from it a folio ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... Have been for twenty Years Under-Sexton of this Parish of St. Paul's, Covent-Garden, and have not missed tolling in to Prayers six times in all those Years; which Office I have performed to my great Satisfaction, till this Fortnight last past, during which Time I find my Congregation take the Warning of my Bell, Morning and Evening, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... out with the weary day, he was soon fast asleep as if he had never been stirred up from the bench in the Minster. No sexton with noisy keys was to be feared, and yet in his sleep the countryman had the sensation of somebody tapping him on the shoulder. He sat up and looked round. To his amazement he beheld a magnificent warrior standing before him, clad ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... Union Congress, at that moment emerged from the door. He asked why we had not entered. I told him the situation, and he persuaded the young lady to permit us to pass in. We entered the hall and presented our credentials. Mr. James Sexton, officer and representative of the Docker's Union of Liverpool, arose and called the attention of the Conference to this situation, and declared that the American Federation of Labor delegates refused to sign any such document. He said ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... out to be the sexton of a country parish on the northern shore of Lake Maelaren who had devised this means of eking out his probably limited professional income. The ensuing correspondence had proved quite satisfactory. The mother was evidently pleased. It was almost as ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... body of Sarah Sexton, Who as a wife did never vex one; We can't say that for her at the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... the time for the ceremony, the ushers arrive at the church and the sexton turns his guardianship over to them. They leave their hats in the vestry, or coat room. Their boutonnieres, sent by the groom, should be waiting in the vestibule. They should be in charge of a boy from the florist's, who has ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... not admire any one of the above,—least of all the last, in which the human voice is embodied as a sexton going down the steps of a tomb. Why, too, as a matter of verbal criticism, should the author use such words ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the bailiff and the sexton sat at cards, and Toad came in to lay the table-cloth, they were like to have rolled off their chairs. Such a sight they had never seen before. Toad had rigged herself up with all manner of parti-coloured 'kerchiefs, and trimmed her hairy poll with blue and yellow and green ribbons ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... been better if he had. For when they got back to the Marshalsea the prison gates had closed for the night and they had to stay out till morning. They wandered in the cold street till nearly dawn; then a kind-hearted sexton who was opening a church let them come in and made Little Dorrit a bed of pew cushions, and there she slept a while with a big church-book for a pillow. Arthur did not know of this adventure till long afterward, for Little Dorrit would not tell him ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... invective, when sinking under the weight of argument; I am not a man who denies the necessity of parliamentary reform, at the time that he approves of its expediency, by reviling his own constituents, the parish clerk, the sexton, and the grave-digger; and if there be any man who can apply what I am not, to himself, I leave him to think of it in the committee, and contemplate upon it when he ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... But we?—we mourn it for a day with tears! And then we robe it for its last long rest, And being women, feeble things at best, We cannot dig the grave ourselves. And so We call strong-limbed New Love to lay it low: Immortal sexton he! whom Venus sends To do this service for her earthly friends, The trusty fellow digs the grave so deep Nothing disturbs the dead ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... was finished, when the rest of the church was still, the sexton led up the aisle a grim- looking man, with a shaggy coat and a very dirty face, and brought him close to the door of Mr. Molyneux's pew— as if he would fain bring him in. Mr. Molyneux was at the end of the pew, but happened to be turning away from the aisle, and the sexton ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... in handsome equipages, but most prefer to walk, and there is usually a good deal of smiling talk in groups before parting, in which Mr. Euston likes to join. He leaves matters in the vestry to the care of old Barlow, the sexton, and makes, if one may be permitted the expression, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... action, for what he had said of her husband. Captain Barnaby gave bail to it, and it came on to a trial in the Court of King's Bench, and they had Mr. Booty's wearing apparel brought into court, and the sexton of the parish, and the people that were with him when he died; and we swore to our journals, and it came to the same time within two minutes; ten of our men swore to the buttons on his coat, and that they were covered with the same sort of cloth his coat was made of, and so it proved. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... diplomatic skill-no matter whether it be of love or law. He gets people into debt, and out of debt; into bankruptcy and out of bankruptcy; into jail and out of jail; into society and out of society. He has officiated in almost every capacity but that of a sexton. If you want money, Mr. Soloman can always arrange the little matter for you. If you have old negroes you want to get off your hands at a low figure, he has a customer. If you want to mortgage your negro property, a thing not uncommon with our very first families, Mr. Soloman ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... The earth that covered it was drawn back like a floating drapery. She sunk down, and the spectre covered her with a black cloak; night closed around her, the night of death. She sank deeper than the spade of the sexton could penetrate, till the churchyard became a roof above her. Then the cloak was removed, and she found herself in a large hall, of wide-spreading dimensions, in which there was a subdued light, like twilight, reigning, and in a moment her child ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... comfortable satisfaction that the Almighty contented Himself in merely counting noses in the pews. For even though it was my brother who got into trouble, I shall never forget the harangue on impiety that awaited us when a most unchristian sexton reported to our father that the pew in front of ours had been found chalked on the back, so as to make its occupants the object of undisguised attention from the rest of the congregation. As circumstantial evidence also ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... thinks, in the field, yon red-cloak'd clown Of thee from the hill-top looking down; The heifer that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight, While his files sweep round yon Alpine height; Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one— Nothing ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... me, And sing. O God, what death, in eyes so bound, They see Life's beauty in her draining wound! Lay thou the blind thing down With saurian tusk and bone, With dust of sworded maw And peril's fossil claw, Lest sexton Earth even Man inter, nor trover Of after-law untomb for Love ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... look into the matter. My grandfather he took across in the boat with him, to look after the parcels and help them up to the Vicarage: and on the way they talked about a grave that my grandfather had been digging—he being sexton and parish clerk, as well as constable and the Parson's right-hand man, as you might call it, in ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for it, he followed the procession through the tombstones, his white surplice blowing, Dick wondering how the little grave had been found amongst so many, but the sexton knew. The parson sprinkled earth upon the coffin, and the sound of the withdrawn ropes cut the mother's heart even more than the rattle of the earth and stones on the coffin lid. Kate threw some flowers into the grave, and it seemed to Dick certain that if she didn't pull herself ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... outskirts, where the flat, treeless plain began again, we found a peasant sexton engaged in digging a grave. His conversation was depressing, not because he dwelt unduly upon death and kindred subjects, but because his views of life were so pessimistic. Why, for example, did it enter his brain to warn me that the Finnish women of the neighboring villages,—all the country ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... was far in a foreign land, The Parson was wax to my Lord's command: He sent for the Sexton and bade him make A lonely grave by the shore ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... sexton rang the bell of the church,—not soberly and steadily, but he tugged with all his might at the rope, throwing the bell over and over,—ringing as if the whole town was in a blaze. The farmers out on the hills heard it, and came driving furiously ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... colour of mud, his bag over his back, and his brains laid feet down in earth among the violet roots and the nettle roots; Mary Sanders with her box of wood; and Tom sent for beer, the half-witted son of the sexton— all this within thirty ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... a place where the carpet is loose along the chancel rail, finds it where two lengths join, deftly turns up a flap, spits upon the bare floor, and then lets the flap fall back, finally giving it a pat with the sole of his foot. This done, he and his assistant leave the church to the sexton, who has been sweeping the vestibule, and, after passing the time of day with the two men who are putting up a striped awning from the door to the curb, disappear into a nearby speak-easy, there to wait and refresh themselves until the wedding ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... number of varieties, the names of some of the more popular ones being the Barthere, Chaberte, Cluster, Drew, Ford, Franquette, Gant or Bijou, Grand Noblesse, Lanfray, Mammoth, Mayette, Wiltz Mayette, Mesange, Meylan, Mission, Parisienne, Poorman, Proeparturiens, Santa Barbara, Pomeroy, Serotina, Sexton, Vourey, Concord, Chase and ...
— English Walnuts - What You Need to Know about Planting, Cultivating and - Harvesting This Most Delicious of Nuts • Various
... be met, such as the rebuilding of the church tower, the recasting of the bells, the raising of a stock to set the poor to work, or the buying of a silver communion cup.[247] Frequently, also, funds were raised by means of ales called clerk-ales, sexton-ales, etc., to pay the wages of clerks, sextons and other servants of the parish. "For in poore Countrey Parishes," writes an early 17th century bishop, "where the wages of the Clerke is very small, the people ... were wont to send him in Provision, and then feast with him, and give ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... the high-spirited Katharine trembled and shook with fear. 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 ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... patted into place; the old minister takes farewell in a few words of gentle sympathy; the brother and sister, with lingering looks at the two graves side by side, the old and the new, step into the farmer's carriage, and drive away; the sexton locks the gate and goes home, and we ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... by this time concluded, and nothing now remained but the last summons of the sexton. At this juncture, while the coffin was being lowered into its resting place, my eyes, accidentally, it may be said, but in reality by some fatal instinct, fell full upon the lid, on which I instantly recognised a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... No one had set the church on fire. The sexton had lighted the furnace for the first time to test it for the Winter's working, but had not stayed to see the result. There was a defect in the furnace, the place had caught fire, and some of the wooden flooring had been burnt before the aged Monseigneur Lourde discovered it. It was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... managed to open the top of the chair, and by dint of great exertions succeeded in forcing the door, and at length freed herself from bondage. She was leisurely groping her way round it in the dark, when her lamentations, being heard without, woke up the old sexton of the chapel,—for it was there we placed her,—who, entering cautiously with a light, no sooner caught a glimpse of the great black sedan and the figure beside it than he also took to his heels, and ran like a madman ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... thieves, I am content to lose some of my crowns, That I may, walking in my gallery, See'm go pinioned along by my door. Being young, I studied physic, and began To practise first upon the Italian: There I enriched the priests with burials, And always kept the sexton's arms in ure With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells; And, after that, was I an engineer, And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, Under pretence of serving [helping] Charles the Fifth, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... performance of my duties. Without her at my elbow I should, I am afraid, be inclined to neglect them. I am bored, not interested as a churchwarden should be, when the wall of the graveyard crumbles unexpectedly. I fail to find either pleasure or excitement in appointing a new sexton. Canon Beresford, our rector, is no more enthusiastic about such things than I am. He and I are very good friends, but when he suspects me of paying him a business visit he goes out to fish. There are, I believe, trout in the stream ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... 30s., as demanded, but desired an houre or two's time. So I away by water to Westminster, and there sent for the girle's mother to Westminster Hall to me; she came and undertakes to get her daughter a lodging and nurse at next doore to her, though she dare not, for the parish's sake, whose sexton her husband is, to [have] her into her owne house. Thence home, calling at my bookseller's and other trifling places, and in the evening the mother come and with a nurse she has got, who demanded and I did agree at 10s. per weeke to take her, and so she ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... morning passed quietly enough. She had taken the precaution of having her folding card table and two pillows sent to the engine house, and when Aggie and I arrived at midday she was seated comfortably, with her hat hung on a lamp of the fire truck. When we arrived she was asking the sexton of the Methodist Church, whom she has known for thirty years, if he had lost a ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the influence of his aunt, the Carmelite nun, Madame Louise. During the life of her father, Louis XV., she nearly engrossed all the Church benefices by her intrigues. She had her regular conclaves of all orders of the Church. From the Bishop to the sexton, all depended on her for preferment; and, till the Revolution, she maintained equal power over the mind of Louis XVI. upon similar matters. The Queen would often express her disapprobation; but the King was so scrupulous, whenever the discussion fell on the topic ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... necessary, Elijah was ready to do even the services of a sexton. When Rabbi Akiba died in prison, Elijah betook himself to the dead man's faithful disciple, Rabbi Joshua, and the two together went to the prison. There was none to forbid their entrance; a deep sleep had fallen upon the turnkeys and the ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... in the sexton's tool-house at the back of the church, and from here I could see the entrances to the house, so unless there was some subterranean way leading to Lanherne Manor, no one could come or go away without ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... beclouded vision, but she saw that it was a genuine certificate of marriage between Archibald-Alexander-John Scott, Marquis of Arondelle, and, Rose Cameron, signed by James Smith, Rector of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, and witnessed by John Thomas Price, Sexton, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... deaths, renewable for ever. So that my uncle, who was a man of an anxious temperament, had little trouble in satisfying himself of the meerings and identity of this narrow tenement, to which Lemuel Mattocks, the sexton, led him as straight and confidently as he could have done to ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to be paid to Curate or Rector, for preaching a sermon on New Year's Day, from a text mentioned in his will. To Parish Clerk 10s. 6d. to sing 100th Psalm, old version, same day. To organist 10s. 6d. for playing tune to same. To Sexton 10s. 6d. if he attend the same; and to master and mistress of the free-school, each 10s. 6d. for attending the charity children at the same time and place; and to the Trustees of the school three guineas for refreshments, and to supply as many quartern loaves to be distributed to such poor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... English in feeling as in origin. Though rebuilt a hundred years ago, on the site of an earlier church, it has remained loyal to its history, and is the true child of the eighteenth century. Is it not fitting that the communion-plate presented by Queen Caroline should be treasured here? That the sexton should still show you, even with a cold indifference, the stately prayer-books which once contained prayers for the king? That a bell, captured at Louisburg by Sir William Pepperell, should summon to the worship of ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... an uproar. A shrill yapping sounded among the choir. Mrs. Airedale swooned; the Bishop's progress up the aisle was impeded by a number of ladies hastening for an exit. Old Mr. Dingo, the sexton, seized the bell-rope in the porch and set up a furious pealing. Cries of rage mingled with hysterical howls from the ladies. Gissing, trembling with horror, surveyed the atrocious hubbub. But it was high time to move, or his retreat would be cut off. He abandoned his ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... are more hard of heart to believe than laymen and the simple. The cure, therefore, having made all due search, and found none living who could have uttered that voice, went not forth himself, but at noon of Good Friday, his service being done, he sent his sexton, as one used not to fear the sight and company of dead men. The sexton set out, whistling for joy of the slaying of the Scot, but when he came back he was running as fast as he might, and scarce could speak for very fear. At the last they won from him ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... over the world's greatest poet, was intended, no doubt, as a warning to some stupid sexton, lest he should empty the grave and give the honored place to some amiable gentleman who had given more ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... this the sexton came to the house on a visit, and the father bewailed his trouble, and told him how his younger son was so backward in every respect that he knew nothing and learned nothing. "Just think," said he, "when I asked him how he was going to earn his bread, he actually wanted to learn to shudder." ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... done he came toward them, wiping the drops from his forehead. The sexton was poor, but out of the feeble strength left to his old age, he had given something to alleviate distress greater than his own. A consciousness of this made his voice peculiarly gentle, as he called a man from the trench to aid in the ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... NED the Sexton," replies he, "and come to know whether the Doctor left any orders for a Funeral Sermon? and where he is to be laid? and whether his grave is to ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... and Stevens, the Sexton, all saw Everard going on the upland path to Swaynestone. But the blacksmith swore to seeing him in the village street at the same hour. A keeper saw him going to the copse at the same time that a shepherd ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... about eggs in it, and so far from being a play of peace, it was made up of a series of battles between certain valiant knights and princes, of whom St. George of England was the chief and conqueror. The rehearsal being over, Robin went with the boys to the sexton's house (he was father to the "King of Egypt"), where they showed him the dresses they were to wear. These were made of gay-coloured materials, and covered with ribbons, except that of the "Black Prince of Paradine," which was black, as became his title. The boys also showed him the ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... have a monastery, and in every monastery interpreters, and you shall be accredited to them all who are of that great Brotherhood. Well, 'tis settled. Go, make ready as best you can; I must write. Stay; the sooner this Harflete is under ground the better. Bid that sturdy fellow, Bolle, find the sexton of the church and help dig his grave, for we will bury him at dawn. Now go, go, I tell you I must write. Come back in an hour, and I will give you money for your faring, also ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... and the others used to laugh at her. She was good and simple, and often in churches and holy places. And when she heard the church bell ring, she would kneel down in the fields.' She used to bribe the sexton to ring the bells (a duty which he rather neglected) with presents ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... church-yard by being acquainted with the sexton, who, though he did not refuse me at all, yet earnestly persuaded me not to go, telling me very seriously—for he was a good and sensible man—that it was indeed their business and duty to run all hazards, and that in so doing they might hope to be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... should have felt an interest in its preservation. About two feet of the top of the shaft is wanting, as may be seen by reference to the engraved sketch, (See the Cut,) which was taken in the year 1815." The sexton of the church, who was then an old man, told Mr. Rhodes in 1818, that he well recollected the missing part being thrown carelessly about the churchyard, as if of no value, until it was broken up by some of the inhabitants, and knocked to pieces for domestic purposes. The preservation ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 563, August 25, 1832 • Various
... Fending and Proving we have had of late, in this little Village of ours, about an old-cast-Pair-of-black-Plush-Breeches, which John, our Parish-Clerk, about ten Years ago, it seems, had made a Promise of to one Trim, who is our Sexton and Dog-Whipper.—To this you write me Word, that you have had more than either one or two Occasions to know a good deal of the shifty Behaviour of this said Master Trim,— and that you are astonished, nor can you for your Soul conceive, how so worthless a Fellow, and so worthless ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... welcome to any man she kin git f'om me. Dat's my principle. But dese heah yaller freckle niggers 'ain't got no principle to 'em. I done heerd dat all my life—an' Silvy she done proved it. Time Wash an' me was married he was a man in good chu'ch standin'—a reg'lar ordained sexton, at six dollars a month—an' I done de sweepin' for him. Dat's huccome I happened to have dat green-handle sto'e broom. Dat's all I ever did git out o' his wages. Any day you'd pass Rose-o'-Sharon Chu'ch dem days you ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... pays for the wedding cards, pays the florist and the caterer, the expense of opening the church and the service of the sexton; the music, carriages for the bridal party, in short, the bills are for the family to pay. Where a wedding is very elaborate, the details are sometimes turned over to a "manager," who sees to everything, and receives a fat fee ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... bells warned her it was the hour of morning service. She walked to church, not humbled and prepared to receive the holy teachings of revelation, but with a defiant feeling in her heart which she did not attempt or care to analyze. She was not accustomed to attend Dr. Hew's church, but the sexton conducted her to a pew, and as she seated herself the solemn notes of the organ swelled through the vaulted aisles. The choir sang a magnificent anthem from Haydn's "Creation," and then only the deep, thundering peal of the organ fell on the dim, cool air. Beulah could bear no more; ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... forth by the back- door, he raised for a moment a pale and tell-tale face that was as direct as a confession. The rascal had expected to see Fenn come forth alone; he was waiting to be called on for that part of sexton, which I had already allotted ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... horsed Master Jacob in the presence of all his brothers and sisters, and of Bryan, to whom he hoped that flogging would act as a warning. But my little rogue kicked and plunged at the old parson's shins until he was obliged to get his sexton to hold him down, and swore, corbleu, morbleu, ventrebleu, that his young friend Jacob should not be maltreated. After this scene, his reverence forbade Bryan the rectory-house; on which I swore that his eldest son, who was bringing up for the ministry, should never have the succession of the ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and exchange in that way numbers of times. I was credibly informed, that one person paid half a pound of tenpenny sugar and a penny to have a tooth drawn; and there is a credible neighbour of mine told me, that he had heard that the sexton had been paid for digging a grave with sugar and tea: and before I came off, knowing I had to give evidence upon these things, I asked this friend to enquire ofthe sexton, whether this was a fact: the sexton hesitated for a little time, on account of ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... canopy of grapes, and sit by a fountain, and talk with the gardener of his tools, which seem greater than Adam's, and with his wife, and with his son's wife, who is the youngest of the party, and, I think, talks best of the three. Then I revisit the Campo Santo, and my old friend, the sexton, has two—but one the prettiest daughter imaginable; and I amuse myself with contrasting her beautiful and innocent face of fifteen with the skulls with which he has peopled several cells, and particularly with that of one skull dated 1766, which was ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... mechanical tendency of our age. There are, in fact, a good many people who profess a profound contempt for matter, though they do nevertheless patronize the butcher and the baker to the manifest detriment of the sexton. Matter and material interests, they would have us believe, are beneath the dignity of the soul; and the degree to which these "earthly things" now absorb the attention of mankind, they think, argues degeneracy from the good old times of abstract philosophy and spiritual dogmatism. But what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... The parties remained for some little time looking at the coffin after it was lowered, and the clergyman slipped away, unobserved even by his dog. An hour after, as he sat at dinner with his friends, his sexton requested to speak with him. He was admitted into the room, when he said it was impossible to close the grave, and that he did not know what to do. "Why?" asked the gentleman, "Because Sir, your terrier stands there, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... going his own gait. He will trot to church on Sundays, and trot, trot, down the aisle after meeting has begun, or, if he likes, up into the gallery. When two of these obstinate old dogs once met before the pulpit they indulged in a whirlwind of fight. The minister requested the sexton to put them out, but they showed him their teeth and fought until satisfied. Then the minister administered a grave rebuke to the farmers for desecrating the house of God by bringing dogs to church. Whether the dogs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... I may, walking in my gallery, See 'm go pinioned along by my door. Being young, I studied physic, and began To practise first upon the Italian; There I enriched the priests with burials, And always kept the sexton's arms in ure [3] With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells. And after that, was I an engineer, And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany, Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth, Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. Then after that was I an usurer, And with extorting, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... then, my lord? Good news should be welcomed with good wine. Frank, send down to the sexton, and set the bells a-ringing to cheer up all honest hearts. Why, my lord, if it were not for the gravity of my office, I could dance a ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... many persons still living in the village who had a perfect recollection of the wonderful sisters. But, strange to say, Haworth was not in those days a popular "shrine." "Whiles some Americans come to see the church, but nobody else," was the statement made to me when I asked the sexton if there were many visitors to the home of ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... hed so to swell, that they coulde not gette it of, tyll they were mynded to cutte it of with hatchettys. Thus was the wenche well iaped,[58] and for fere she ranne from her fader; her faders arme was hurte; the colyar lost his coles; the sexton was almost out of hys wyt; and the gentylman had almost ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... had given to his country, and signed by three hundred of the national leaders in Ireland, including the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Charles Dawson), Parnell, Davitt, Dillon, Biggar. Justin McCarthy, Healy, William O'Brien, Sexton, ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... through Holland, counting the windmills, studying the "explications" set forth in painfully elaborate English on its old church walls with the information for travellers that further particulars were to be obtained of the sexton, who might be found with the key "in the neighborhood No. 5." We had argued with the keeper of the Prinzenhof in Delft that William the Silent could not possibly have been murdered as he said he was—that he must have come ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... told him how his younger son was so backward in every respect that he knew nothing and learned nothing. "Just think," said he, "when I asked him how he was going to earn his bread, he actually wanted to learn to shudder." "If that be all," replied the sexton, "he can learn that with me. Send him to me, and I will soon polish him." The father was glad to do it, for he thought: "It will train the boy a little." The sexton, therefore, took him into his house, and he had to ring the bell. After a day or two the sexton ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... evening one of the officials of the republic made up an account, now preserved in the Imperial Library of Paris, and which must move even the historian himself to tears. It runs as follows: "Cost of interments, conducted by Joly, sexton of Madelaine de la Ville l'Eveque, of persons condemned by the Tribunal of the Committee of Safety, to wit, No. 1 . . . ." Then follow twenty-four names and numbers, and then "No. 25. ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... place, burial ground; grave yard, church yard; God's acre; tope, cromlech, barrow, tumulus, cairn; ossuary; bone house, charnel house, dead house; morgue; lich gate^; burning ghat^; crematorium, crematory; dokhma^, mastaba^, potter's field, stupa^, Tower of Silence. sexton, gravedigger. monument, cenotaph, shrine; grave stone, head stone, tomb stone; memento mori [Lat.]; hatchment^, stone; obelisk, pyramid. exhumation, disinterment; necropsy, autopsy, post mortem examination [Lat.]; zoothapsis^. V. inter, bury; lay in the grave, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... last to undergo this ordeal; clad only in her shift, she thrice crossed the King's Highway and was thus married to avoid payment of her first husband's debts. It is not far from the old Church Foundation of St. Paul's of Narragansett, and the tumble-down house of Sexton Martin Read, the prince of Narragansett weavers in ante-Revolutionary days. Weaver Rose learned to weave from his grandfather, who was an ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... produced; "when the patient will be said to die of liver complaint, an affection of the lungs, marasmus, dysentery, diarrhoea, or some anomalous complication of all these affections, conveniently classed by the Doctor when he renders his account to the sexton, under the sweeping term, consumption." The medical profession will doubtless appreciate the value of the connexion which Mr. Halsted is anxious to establish between the physician and the respectable officer who acts as the last gentleman-usher to mankind, and duly estimate ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... so, Riekje. If my old father dies first, I shall say to the gravedigger, 'Dig a big hole, sexton, for my mother will ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... churches to expect or to receive fees for conducting funerals, yet it is in perfectly good taste to offer him a fee. In the Roman Catholic Church the rate of fees for funerals is fixed. There are, besides, fees for the sexton, the organist, ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... ushers and groomsmen are unknown at an English wedding. The sexton of the church performs the functions which are attended ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood |
