Jenny Mykelborne, a stone’s throw away, was asking the same question; for death ran in her mind tonight, a message having come from Maiden Holt that her father was to attend in the morning to measure Paul Dewdney for a coffin. She was reflecting on the chance of there being something already in stock that would do. For the wheelwright’s workshop generally contained at least one coffin of a likely size, Mykelborne’s first concern being, when one funeral was over, to begin making ready for another. ‘Tis martal folly to be took unawares,’ he said. ‘There be no manner of sense in that, my dearies.’ And while at work on the new coffin he would busy his mind with wondering who was most likely to occupy it: whether Gaffer This or Gammer That, or poor Sally Byfoot as had been these ten years abed poor soul, or yon fellow that fell sick a-Saturday. Without levity, and in his own sober and godly fashion, he would make bets on this matter, as it were with Death himself; and when his candidate was chosen he would greet the event with a suitable mingling of melancholy and triumph. ‘Deary me now, so he’s gone at last, poor soul. Now mark my words and whaddid I tella. All flesh is grass, I telled a, and tis old Roger as’ll stretch his length in you, I said, giving coffin a tap with my hammer. All flesh is grass, to be sure, as Postle Paul well knowed.’ But Death was more than his match and full of surprises, and as often as not outwitted him by passing over the gaffers and gammers, and never coming near the Sally Byfoots; for the green springing corn is as much to his fancy as the ripe grain or the rotten. To Jenny a coffin was a homely and familiar thing: as a child she had put her dolls to bed in it, and played at dinner-parties on the lid. Coffins meant nothing, and death meant very little. At nineteen she was immortal. Nor was she unwilling to share the sweet taste of her immortality with such of the village men as took her fancy. She was big and fair and sentimental, with the bold shy staring eyes of a child, a plump maturity of figure, and lips that were a perpetual invitation. Nothing so much surprised her as to be kissed, and her capacity for enjoying such surprises was inexhaustible. So her thoughts, though tonight they began with Paul Dewdney’s death and the coffin that her father must provide, did not long rest there, but went following the stranger and his horses down the Dyking road.