Occurring, therefore, at a season when the supply of news was particularly scanty, the death of the little Chevalier was a boon to Saxonholme.  The wildest reports were bandied about, and the most extraordinary fictions set on foot respecting his origin and station.  He was a Russian spy.  He was the unfortunate son of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette.  He was a pupil of Cagliostro, and the husband of Mlle. Lenormand.  Customers flocked to the tap of the Red Lion as they had never flocked before, unless in election-time; and good Mrs. Cobbe had to repeat the story of the conjuror’s illness and death till, like many other reciters, she had told it so often that she began to forget it.  As for her husband, he had enough to do to serve the customers and take the money, to say nothing of showing the room, which proved a vast attraction, and remained for more than a week just as it was left on the evening of the performance, with the table, canopy and paraphernalia of wizardom still set out upon the platform.

In the midst of these things arose a momentous question—­what was the religion of the deceased, and where should he be buried?  As in the old miracle plays we find good and bad angels contending for the souls of the dead, so on this occasion did the heads of all the Saxonholme churches, chapels and meeting-houses contend for the body of the little Chevalier.  He was a Roman Catholic.  He was a Dissenter.  He was a member of the Established Church.  He must be buried in the new Protestant Cemetery.  He must lie in the churchyard of the Ebenezer Tabernacle.  He must sleep in the far-away “God’s Acre” of Father Daly’s Chapel, and have a cross at his head, and masses said for the repose of his soul.  The controversy ran high.  The reverend gentlemen convoked a meeting, quarrelled outrageously, and separated in high dudgeon without having arrived at any conclusion.

Whereupon arose another question, melancholy, ludicrous, perplexing, and, withal, as momentous as the first—­Would the little Chevalier get buried at all?  Or was he destined to remain, like Mahomet’s coffin, for ever in a state of suspense?

At the last, when Mr. and Mrs. Cobbe despairingly believed that they were never to be relieved of their troublesome guest, a vestry was called, and the churchwardens brought the matter to a conclusion.  When he went round with his tickets, the conjuror called first at the Rectory, and solicited the patronage of Doctor Brand.  Would he have paid that compliment to the cloth had he been other than a member of that religion “by law established?” Certainly not.  The point was clear—­could not be clearer; so orthodoxy and the new Protestant Cemetery carried the day.

The funeral was a great event—­not so far as mutes, feathers and carriages were concerned, for the Chevalier left but little worldly gear, and without hard cash even the most deserving must forego “the trappings and the suits of woe;” but it was a great event, inasmuch as it celebrated the victory of the Church, and the defeat of all schismatics.  The rector himself, complacent and dignified, preached the funeral sermon to a crowded congregation, the following Sunday.  We almost forgot, in fact, that the little Chevalier had any concern in the matter, and regarded it only as the triumph of orthodoxy.