respect. What would the world say to your | increase, yet the necessity of listening to the heartless, the atrocious language of my son, rendered my tongue-tied impotency a thousand times more intolerable. conduct? What reason would you assign for it?" "The world is very slow to censure a man who has seven or eight thousand a year; and if my motive satisfies myself, that's quite enough. Hark ye, Sarah ! Before I left Newmarket I received an impertinent and prying letter from Doctor Linnel, asking fifty questions about Raby's Restorative. I need not tell you what an obstinate and suspicious old fellow he is, and that he piques himself upon discovering the cause of everybody's death. It is his hobby, his monomania, under the influence of which I have not the smallest doubt that he will insist upon having the body opened. Now, you know what an insuperable objection my father had to this sort of mutilation. My own feelings are equally opposed to so barbarous and irreverent a practice; and so, to avoid all controversy and all annoyance, I have determined that the funeral shall take place immediately." "But you might await the doctor's return, and refuse to indulge him in what you term his monomania." "That might excite ugly suspicions, and give rise to a thousand innuendos and insinuations which it is much better to avoid." "It seems to me that such an unusual precipitation is still more calculated to excite unpleasant comments." "My dear Sarah, you know nothing about these matters. I am sole executor; I may do as I like: I choose to have my father buried on Friday, and I have summoned the undertaker to be here this afternoon for orders; so you need not say a word more on the subject." CHAPTER VI. 66 Come, come, Mr. Tomkins; no humbug, no flummery! What undertaker was ever sorry to hear of a death? Nonsense! people must diealways have, and always will; nothing new, so you need n't look so confoundedly miserable. Now to business. I should wish the old gentleman to have a handsome funeral." "Oh, certainly, sir, certainly. A gentleman of your fine fortune would desire, of course, to have everything suitable." "Yes, but I am not going to leave it to you. Here are my orders, all written down. No extras, you see; everything can soon be got ready, and so we will have the funeral on Friday.” "Dear me, did you say Friday, sir? That will be only three days after the death; and few people are ever buried under a week, unless there are particular reasons. He "Well, but there are particular reasons. died of an infectious disease of a very virulent and malignant kind, and so for the sake of the living we must pop him under ground as fast as possible. You can have everything ready by next Friday, I suppose ?—in fact you must.” "I question whether we could get the leaden coffin soldered together in such a hurry. Mr. Briggs, you see, must first come to take measure; then-” 66 Why, then we won't have one at all. An elm coffin will do-keep him tight enough, I dare say. Not afraid of the corpse getting out, are It was now clear, manifest, indisputable, that I had been intentionally poisoned by my most ungrateful and unnatural son; and that I was to be hurried into the grave with a scandalous precipitation, lest the return of Doctor Linnel, and an examination of the body, might lead to a detection of the villany! To the lingering hope by which I had been hitherto sustained-the chance of reviving during the week that usually intervenes between death and interment-now succeeded an utter despair, aggravated by an intense rage against the miscreant to whose machinations I had fallen a victim, and a feeling of unutterable loathing and horror at the prospect of being buried alive. This volcano of fiery passion burnt inwardly with the more terrific energy, because it was denied all outward vent, either by voice or gesture. Groans and cries, fierce invective or convulsive violence, are the outbursts which nature has provided for the manifestation and relief of mental or corporeal | have lead.” agony; but while my anguish was probably more acute than human being had ever previously suffered, while my life might yet be saved by the utterance of a sound or the movement of a finger, I remained dumb, helpless, and immovable-a living corpse! It might have been thought that the misery of my plight was hardly susceptible of you?" "Oh dear no, sir; we screw 'em down too tight for that; only, when we bury in a vault, (yours is a capital one, sir,) it is customary to "Well, well, the old gentleman will be among his own family; and though relations are so apt to quarrel when alive, I believe they are very good friends after death. You never heard of their coffins standing on end and running a-tilt at each other, did you?" Tickled by the absurdity of this idea, he again indulged in a burst of that inane and hideous rifice, counting the weary hours in unimaginable laughter by which I had previously been revolted; desolation and despair of spirit, until the arrival and having dismissed the undertaker with a renewal of his peremptory orders, he walked up and down the room, quaffing fresh glasses of Madeira, fantastically swinging his arms, and chuckling as he muttered to himself, " Capital dodge about the malignant fever! Tomkins will spread it everywhere, and so explain the hurry. Good, good!" CHAPTER VII. of the fatal Friday that was to consummate my horrible doom. Early on that morning my coffin was brought in and deposited by my bedside, my whole soul recoiling from it with an abhorrence only the more intense because my loathing was unsusceptible of utterance or manifestation. Mr. Hodges, the undertaker's foreman, drew up the window-blind, exclaiming, as he returned to the bedside, "Well, I'm blessed if ever I see a more freshlooking stiff-un," (such was his brutal nick-name for a corpse ;)" one might almost swear that he was only asleep. To be sure, he 's only three days dead, and we don't often screw 'em up so fresh. And he ain't swelled the least in the world. Some dead-uns don't care what trouble they give, and will puff themselves out in such a thoughtless way after being measured, that it's a good hour's work to ram and jam them into their wooden box. We shan't have any such bother here; the old chap, you'll find, will fit as true as a trivet. Bear a hand, and let 's try." Abandoned once more to solitude, silence, and my own miserable thoughts, I had no other occupation than to count every knell of the clock that brought me sixty minutes nearer to my living burial, a doom from which I recoiled with increasing horror as the chance of escaping it grew hourly less and less. On the following day the soul-sickening processes of preparation for the grave gave me a frightful foretaste of my impending fate. The undertaker came to measure me for my coffin, taking the dimensions of my body with as much indifference as if I had been a log of wood; and observing, with a complacent smile, The coffin had been placed on tall tressels, and that he had a ready-made article at home that as I was lifted from the bed to be laid within it, would exactly fit-a lucky circumstance, as he my head was elevated for a few seconds, and I was so much pressed for time. Two of his men caught through the window a clear view-my last subsequently tumbled and turned me over, without view, as I then believed-of the world without. the smallest ceremony, to invest me in my shroud Oh! how transcendently charming, how ineffably -the court-dress in which we all present ourselves sweet, and beautiful, and glorious, did it appear! at the grand levee of the King of Terrors. Some- God's mild eye was radiant in the unclouded thing there was at once ridiculous and repulsive in heavens; the birds were singing gayly, intoxicated the elaborate toilette with which they decorated with sunshine; the shifting lights and shades gave a ghastly corpse, shortly to become a still more picturesque variety to hill and dale and grove, to ghastly skeleton; while their coarse language was earth and water; all was life and motion in the not less offensive than the unfeeling familiarity fields; and in the contiguous paddock I caught a with which they performed their functions. "I glimpse of the white cob to whom I had been insay, old chap," cried one, laying his dirty hand debted for so many pleasant rides upon my forehead, and moralizing with an evident complacency upon my plight; "I say, old chap, all your money was n't of no use, you see, when it comes to this here; and they do say you wasn't over-nice in scraping it together. You wer' n't no better than you should be, though you did carry your head so high; but there's one comfort, you 'Il be called over the coals where you 're going to: If you was to give me all your estate, and all your gold in the bank, I would n't change places with you. Ah, Joe, Joe!" he continued, turning to a boy by his side; "now you see how true it is that a live dog is better than a dead lion!" By hedge-row elms and hillocks green, and whose back I was never again to bestride! Murder most foul, as at the best it is, After I had been deposited in my narrow receptacle, not without many a coarse and unfeeling scoff from the parties who performed this office, I was again left to solitude and my own miserable thoughts. While I was occupied in calculating the lapse of time with an ever-increasing horror, I heard footsteps approaching; my daughter bent tenderly over me, repeatedly kissed my lips, while "Well, Joe, what can be fairer? it's only turn the tears fell fast upon my face; and whispering and turn about, you know." Such was the tone of the discourse to which I was condemned to listen, and I need not state that it did not tend to diminish the mental distress by which I had been already overwhelmed. an almost inaudible "Farewell forever, my dear, dear father!" retired sobbing from the room. Most sweet and dear was this evidence of filial affection, even although it could not for an instant defer the appalling catastrophe which was about to Thus did I lie, as a victim dressed out for sac- overtake me. HAPTER VIII. While reflecting upon the visit of my dear and good daughter, which was not altogether without a soothing influence upon my soul, I was startled by the tolling of the church-bell, at all times a solemn and impressive sound, but oh! how indescribably awful and harrowing to me, who heard it tolling for my own funeral, my own quick interment! Whatever faint lingerings of hope had hitherto clung to my heart now died away, and my despair was consummated when the foreman returned to the chamber and screwed down the top of the coffin, an operation which he effected with a celerity which surprised me. His assistants joining him after a brief interval, I was hoisted on their shoulders, carried through the parlor and the hall, and finally pushed into a hearse, the door of which must have been left open for several minutes, since I distinctly heard much of what was passing around me-a circumstance for which I was subsequently enabled to account. I caught the sound of my son's voice, talking not only in a tone of unconcern, but of absolute levity, with his Newmarket friend, Sir Freeman Dashwood, who had doubtless been summoned rather to celebrate the son's succession than to show respect to the deceased father. By the trampling of hoofs, the rolling of wheels, and other indications, I became aware that, my funeral not being deficient in any of the customary paraphernalia, I was to make my triumphal procession to the grave with all that mockery of earthly grandeur which is usually displayed when a gentleman's corpse is about to be subjected to the worms. The bearer of the black panache marshalled the array, followed by horses with nodding plumes and housings of sable velvet, and mourning-coaches whose occupants seemed to be anything but mourners, and wand-bearing footmen, and the decorated hearse in slow and solemn stateliness, conveying earth to earth with all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious-dust! On the arrival of this idle pageant, the vanity of vanities, at the church-door, the coffin was borne into the sacred building; and the funeral service, of which, from my position, I did not lose a single word, was performed by Mr. Mason, the curate, with a more than usual impressiveness and feeling. When I reflected-for I had time for thought even in that harrowing moment-that I had not only refused my daughter's hand to this gifted and excellent man, but had impoverished her, should she marry him after my decease, in order still further to enrich my unnatural son, my heart became penetrated by a pang of the most intense shame and remorse. Blind and erring mortals that we are! How often and how completely should we alter our wills, could we look forward for a few days or even for a few hours. Callous indeed must be the heart of the mere spectator who, when the coffin is lowered, and he hears the mould rattling on the lid, accompanied by the solemn words, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," remains unaffected by an audible announcement, telling him, as if it were a voice from the grave, that a fellow-creature has been consigned to that final resting-place whither he himself, perhaps at no distant date, must inevitably follow him. What, then, must have been its effect upon me, to whom that sound was literally a death-rattle, utterly extinguishing hope, and imparting to my dark and dismal apprehensions a still blacker despair? A few steps in the churchyard, usually covered with a slab of stone, led down to the door of our family vault. Down that slope I was carried; I was borne into the sepulchre; by the directions of the undertaker's foreman I was deposited on the ground near the entrance; the men withdrew; the door was locked; I heard the departing footsteps of the assembled spectators; all was over; I was buried alive! Long as I had anticipated this frightful result, I had hitherto been unable to realize it to my own mind; and even now that the catastrophe had actually occurred, my thoughts, strange to say, dwelt more on its immediate than its ultimate effect. It had ever been my ambition, stimulated perhaps by my dislike of its proprietor, Godfrey Thorpe, to become the owner of Oakfield Hall, with its extensive deer-stocked park and wide domains; and I contrasted that coveted possession with my present habitation. My Elizabethan mansion was a coffin; my deer-stocked park was a narrow vault occupied with mouldering corpses; four mildewed walls were its ring-fence; and instead of the broad acres, the sunny cope of heaven, and the living face of nature, I was the lord of sepulchral darkness and noisome death. The miserable utterness of the contrast seemed to possess some unaccountable attraction, for it engrossed my reflections during several minutes. Anon, as my mind wandered back to my past life, to the fine fortune I had made, and to the occasional malversations by which I had unfairly augmented it, a deep contrition and humiliation depressed my spirit; and I made a vow to my soul that if ever I should be restored to life-improbable, not to say impossible, as such a contingency appeared-I would make restitution, and thenceforward lead a righteous and blameless life in the sight of God and man. In this frame of mind I prayed long and fervently for pardon of my misdeeds-a penitent appeal to Heaven which afforded me a momentary solace. CHAPTER IX. Quickly, too quickly, however, did my thoughts, recurring to my miserable plight, begin to speculate upon the nature of the horrors in which it must inevitably terminate. Should I, recovering my muscular powers and my voice, make desperate and frantic efforts to force up the lid of the coffin; and, failing in that struggle, madly scream and shout for assistance? Faint and forlorn must be such a hope, for the church was an isolated building, and there were neither houses nor footpaths in its immediate vicinity. Even if I succeeded in escaping from the coffin, I should still be a sinking down into the shuddering sea; and a prisoner in the vault, to stumble over the moulder- ghastly frown spread itself over the face of nature; ing remains of my forefathers, finally to perish and a sable curtain was lowered upon the world; slowly and wretchedly of madness and starvation. and all was night, and deep darkness, and death: One alternative remained. My apparent death might gradually be changed into a real one; life might faint away from me, and I might slide into another world without suffering, and almost without consciousness—an euthanasia for which I put up fresh prayers to the Fountain of Mercy. A new turn was given to my reflections by the striking of the church clock, whose echoes reverberated through the empty edifice with a peculiar solemnity; and I occupied myself in mentally reckoning the minutes till the sound was repeated, to which I listened with a mingled feeling of dismay and consolation. True, it warned me that I was an hour nearer to death, but it proved also that I was not yet completely cut off from the upper world; nay, it seemed to restore me to the living scenes I had quitted, for my mind, floating upwards on every fresh vibration, dwelt among all the objects and occupations appropriate to that peculiar time. Who can wonder that I should find a melancholy pleasure in the delusion of this waking dream? It was dispelled by a very different sound-by the chirping and twittering of birds, some of them singing from the adjacent yew-tree, and others hopping about, as I conjectured, close to the steps of my vault. Sadness there was in their merriment, for it made my own miserable plight more bitter, and I could not help mentally ejaculating, "Oh, blessed birds! ye have the bright sun and the balmy air for your recreation; ye have wings to convey ye over the whole beautiful expanse of nature; ye have voices to give expression to your delight, and to convert happiness into music; while I-" The contrast was too horrible, and I wrenched my thoughts away from its contemplation. when lo! in an opposite direction, the veil of heaven was lifted up; the aurora of a new and transcendently beautiful creation was revealed, its sun shining with a radiant and yet undazzling splendor; and the air was scented with aromatic odors; and fair-haired angels, hovering on roseate wings, struck their golden harps, attuning their dulcet and melodious voices to a choral anthem, as they majestically floated around a central throne, upon whose ineffable glories no human eye could bear to gaze. How long my faculties were absorbed in the contemplation of this vision I know not, but some hours must thus have slipped away, for when it was dispelled by the noise of a storm rushing across the churchyard, the clock was striking twelve. Heavily did its iron clang vibrate through the building, and send its sullen echoes far and near upon the pinions of the sweeping tempest. Midnight! Superstitious as it may be, an undefined fear and awe ever hang about it like a shroud; but how immeasurably more impressive must have been the influence of the hour, with all its ghostly and ghastly associations, to me, inhumed and yet alive! surrounded by the mouldering remains of countless generations, and in actual contact with the corpses or the skeletons of my own forefathers! As if for the purpose of accumulating horrors upon horrors, the war of the elements became momentarily more loud and furious. The wind, which had previously moaned and groaned, now burst into a fierce howl; the yew-tree creaked and rustled as its boughs were lashed by the gust; the rain was driven in rattling plashes against the door of the vault, the steps that led down to it not having yet been covered over; and a splitting peal of thunder, that might almost have awakened the dead, seemed to shake the solid earth beneath me. In this terrific outburst the storm had spent its fury, for a lull succeeded, during which a faint sound fell upon mine ear that almost maddened me with excitement. Evening had arrived, and all was silence, when suddenly the church-organ poured forth its rich, swelling, and sonorous volume of sound, followed by the melodious voices of children singing a hymn, and blending into a harmony ineffably sweet and solemn. For a moment I was bewildered, "Gracious heaven!" I exclaimed, in thought, and I should have believed myself under the in- " do my senses deceive me? can that be the tramp fluence of another dream, had I not recollected of feet? It is it is! They come nearerthat it was Friday evening, when the clerk and nearer-nearer-they descend the steps-hist! organist invariably summoned the charity children hark!-the key rattles in the lock-it turns-the to the church, that they might rehearse the singing door is opened-the door is opened the door is for the coming Sabbath. Oh how I yearned to opened!!" join in their devotions! Oh! with what compla- Miraculous is the lightning speed with which, cency of soul did I listen to them! Oh! how in a crisis like this, thoughts rush through the my heart sank within me when the performance mind. In less than a second mine had solved the was over, and the church-doors were again locked, and the last lingering footstep was heard to quit the burial-ground! whole mystery, and I could account for my deliverance from the grave even before it had been accomplished. Dr. Linnel had returned sooner than Still, however, did those sacred symphonies was expected; his previous suspicions had been vibrate in my ear, enchanting and exciting my confirmed by the indecent haste of my burial; he fancy, until it conjured up an ideal presentiment of had instantly despatched people to disinter me; surpassing grandeur and glory. Methought I saw his skill would quickly discover that I was only the last sun that earth was destined to behold slowly in a trance; he would restore me to life; I should be enabled to reward my dutiful and affectionate | appear a heaven. Tall Holloway was the famildaughter, to punish my unnatural son, to enjoy, iar name of a professor in the neighboring town perhaps, several years of an existence made happy who gave lectures on anatomy, always illustrated by the consciousness that it was free from reproach by the dissection of human subjects; and it was in the sight of Heaven, and not unbeneficial to my manifest that the intruders in the vault, instead of fellow-creatures. Never, no, never, were I to live coming as my deliverers, and the agents of Dr. for a hundred years, shall I forget the flash of Linnel, as I had so fondly conceited, were sacriecstasy that electrified my bosom at this moment! legious ruffians, whose purpose was to steal my Hope, methought, leaped upon my throbbing heart, body and sell it to the surgeons for mutilation and and clapped her hands, and shouted aloud in a dismemberment ! transport of joy-" Saved! saved! saved!" CHAPTER X. The parties who entered the vault, as I quickly discovered by their voices, were the sexton, and Hodges, the foreman, who had superintended all the arrangements of my coffin. "What a precious wild night, Master Griffith!" said the latter, "but not more wild and out of the way than the whole of this here day's work. Only to think of Mr. George, when his father's hardly cold, as a man may say, instead of riding home decent, after the funeral, giving a regular blow-out to all our fellows at the Jolly Cricketers,' making some on 'em as drunk as fiddlers, and then setting them to play at leapfrog; and he and Sir Freeman Dashwood laughing fit to split when they tumbled over one another." · "Well, I call that downright scandalous, and disgraceful to all parties, 'specially as he never axed me," replied the sexton. The burning indignation with which I listened to this wicked and wanton insult upon my memory, this outrage upon all decency, was in some degree allayed by the recollection that my quick deliverance and anticipated revival would enable me to show my sense of such unnatural conduct. "We shan't have much trouble with the coffin," resumed Hodges; "the lid baint half fastened, and I ha'n't screwed it down close, you see, not by a good eighth of an inch." This explained the distinctness with which I had heard everything that passed around me, while the air admitted through the crevice may have assisted to preserve my life, for I presume some sort of imperceptible respiration must have been going on. Again with elastic speed did my thoughts rush forward to the probable result of their proceedings; but oh how miserably different were my present anticipations from those in which I had so recently indulged! One only glimmering of hope was perceptible in the hideous prospect before me. It was just possible that Mr. Holloway, an experienced surgeon, discovering my entranced state, might stay his uplifted hand, throw away his scalpel, and succeed in effecting my resuscitation. But how much more probable that the progress of his operations might reänimate me for a time, only to writhe and die under the agony of my wounds; or perhaps to be patched up after I had been half-butchered, that I might stagger under the load of life as a maimed and disfigured cripple, a misery to myself and a revolting object to my friends! While tortured by these harrowing ideas, the lid of the coffin was removed, and Hodges, turning his dark lantern full upon my face, said to his companion-" What d'ye think of that, Griffith? There's a beauty of a stiff-un ! don't know as ever I see a finer. Just take hold of his legs, will ye, and help to lift him out." By their joint exertions I was raised from the coffin, and deposited upon a piece of old carpet spread beside it-a position that enabled me to contemplate the scene before me. The sexton's brent and snowy head glistened, and his sharp eyes twinkled in the light, as he counted in the palm of his shrivelled hand, the ten shillings with which he had doubtless been bribed for giving admission to the vault. His accomplice, in spite of his revolting occupation, exhibited a not unpleasing physiognomy, and screwed down the lid with a complacent smile, as if he were well pleased with his night's work. The piled coffins at the back of the vault were mostly thrown into "You see, Griffith," continued the foreman, deep shade, though here and there an unrusted "if you have but the least opening in the world, nail or inscription-plate caught the flickering ray; it do help to keep the stiff-un so uncommon fresh. or some ghastly bone, escaped from its moulderAh! we don't often get such a prize as this;ing receptacle, gathered a sickly gleam around it. only three or four days dead; sweet as a vilet; The whole picture was framed in the black arch almost as good as if he were alive. I can tell Tall Holloway one thing-he shall pay me double for this here corpse afore ever he do stick a knife in him." of the vault. When the lid of the coffin had been replaced, the men rolled the carpet around me, raised me on their shoulders, carried me out, and laid me on From the pinnacle of ineffable transport and a flat barrow or truck. I heard the door cauecstasy upon which my soul had perched, in the tiously locked, and at the same moment I felt myconviction of my reprieval and restoration to life, self to be trundling along the churchyard path; these withering words hurled me instantly down-the wheel being almost inaudible, owing to the down to an abyss of unutterable loathing and horror softness of the ground, for it was still raining and despair, that made all my previous sufferings heavily. |