tinctness; E remarked to me that he always thought a churchyard at midnight was the gloomiest object imaginable;" and I talked about business-"soon be over"-"shallow grave"-&c. &c. "Confound it-what if those two brothers of hers SHOULD be there?" said Mabruptly, making a dead stop, and folding his arms on his breast. E "Powerful fellows, both of them!" muttered We resumed our march-when Tip, our advanced guard-a title he earned by anticipating our steps about three inchessuddenly stood still, let down the bag from his shoulders, elevated both hands in a listening attitude, and exclaimed, "Whisht! whisht! By my soul, what was that?" We all paused in silence, looking palely at one another-but could hear nothing except the drowsy flutter of a bat wheeling away from us a little overhead. "Fait-an' wasn't it somebody spaking on the far side o' the hedge, I heard?" whispered Tip. "do you mane to give the poor cratur Christian burial, when ye've done wid her? An' will you put her back again as ye found her? 'Case, if you won't, blood an' oons". "Hark ye now, Tip," said I sternly, taking out one of a brace of empty pistols I had put into my greatcoat pocket, and presenting it to his head, "we have hired you on this business, for the want of a better, you wretched fellow ! and if you give us any more of your nonsense, by I'll send a bullet through your brain! Do you hear me, Tip?" "Och, aisy, aisy wid ye! don't murther me! Bad-luck to me that I ever cam wid ye! Och, and if iver I live to die, won't I see and bury my ould body out o' the rache of all the docthers in the world? If I don't, divel burn me!" We all laughed aloud at Tip's truly Hibernian expostulation." "Come, sir, mount! over with you!" said we, helping to push him upwards. "Now, drop this bag on the other side," we continued, giving him the sack that contained our implements. We all three of us then followed, and alighted safely in the churchyard. It poured with rain; and, to enhance the dreariness and horrors of the time and place, flashes of lightning followed in quick succession, shedding a transient awful glare over the scene, revealing the white tombstones, the ivy-grown venerable come on an unhallowed errand! I perfectly well recollect the lively feelings of apprehension -"the compunctious visitings of remorse"which the circumstances called forth in my own breast, and which, I had no doubt, were shared by my companions. "Poh-stuff, you idiot!" I exclaimed, losing my temper. "Come, M and Eit's high time we had done with all this cowardly nonsense; and if we mean really to do anything, we must make haste. 'Tis past twelve -day breaks about four-and it is coming on wet, you see. Several large drops of rain, pat-church, and our own figures, a shivering group, tering heavily among the leaves and branches, corroborated my words, by announcing a coming shower, and the air was sultry enough to warrant the expectation of a thunder-storm. We therefore buttoned up our greatcoats to the chin, and hurried on to the churchyard wall, which ran across the bottom of the lane. This wall we had to climb over to get into the churchyard, and it was not a very high one. Here Tip annoyed us again. I told him to lay down his bag, mount the wall, and look over into the yard, to see whether all was clear before us; and, as far as the light would enable him, to look about for a new-made grave. Very reluctantly he complied, and contrived to scramble to the top of the wall. He had hardly time, however, to peer over into the churchyard, when a fluttering streak of lightning flashed over us, followed, in a second or two, by a loud burst of thunder! Tip fell in an instant to the ground, like a cockchafer shaken from an elm-tree, and lay crossing himself, and muttering Paternosters. We could scarcely help laughing at the manner in which he tumbled down, simultaneously with the flash of lightning. "Now, look ye, ginticmen," said he, still squatting on the ground, As no time, however, was to be lost, I left the group, for an instant, under the wall, to search out the grave. The accurate instructions I had received enabled me to pitch on the spot with little difficulty; and I returned to my companions, who immediately followed me to the scene of operations. We had no umbrellas, and our greatcoats were saturated with wet; but the brandy we had recently taken did us good service, by exhilarating our spirits, and especially those of Tip. He untied the sack in a twinkling, and shook out the hoes and spades, &c.; and taking one of the latter himself, he commenced digging with such energy, that we had hardly prepared ourselves for work, before he had cleared away nearly the whole of the mound. The rain soon abated, and the lightning ceased for a considerable interval, though thunder was heard occasionally grumbling sullenly in the distance, as if expressing anger at our unholy doings—at least I felt it so. The pitchy dark- | many epithets of the same sort. We gradually ness continued, so that we could scarcely see one another's figures. We worked on in silence, as fast as our spades could be got into the ground; taking it in turns, two by two, as the grave would not admit of more. on-on we worked till we had hollowed out about three feet of earth. Tip then hastily joined together a long iron screw or borer, which he thrust into the ground, for the purpose of ascertaining the depth at which the coffin yet lay from us. To our vexation, we found a distance of three feet remained to be got through. "Sure, and by the soul of St. Patrick, but we'll not be done by the morning!" said Tip, as he threw down the instrument and resumed his spade. We were all discouraged. Oh, how earnestly I wished myself at home, in my snug little bed in the Borough! How I cursed the Quixotism that had led me into such an undertaking! I had no time, however, for reflection, as it was my turn to relieve one of the diggers; so into the grave I jumped, and worked away as lustily as before. While I was thus engaged, a sudden noise, close to our ears, so startled me, that I protest I thought I should have dropped down dead in the grave I was robbing. I and my fellow-digger let fall our spades, and all four stood still for a second or two in an ecstasy of fearful apprehension. We could not see more than a few inches around us, but heard the grass trodden by approaching feet! They proved to be those of an ass, that was turned at night into the churchyard, and had gone on eating his way towards us; and, while we were standing in mute expectation of what was to come next, opened on us with an astounding hee-haw hee-haw! hee-haw! Even after we had discovered the ludicrous nature of the interruption, we were too agitated to laugh. The brute was actually close upon us, and had given tongue from under poor Tip's elbow, having approached him from behind, as he stood leaning on his spade. Tip started suddenly backward against the animal's head, and fell down. Away sprang the jackass, as much confounded as Tip, kicking and scampering like a mad creature among the tombstones, and hee-hawing incessantly, as if a hundred devils had got into it for the purpose of discomfiting us. I felt so much fury and fear lest the noise should lead to our discovery I could have killed the brute if it had been within my reach, while Tip stammered, in an affrightened whisper-"Och, the baste! Och, the baste! The big black divel of a baste! The murtherous, thundering"- and a great recovered from the agitation which this provoking interruption had occasioned; and Tip, under the promise of two bottles of whisky as soon as we arrived safe at home with our prize, On-renewed his exertions, and dug with such energy that we soon cleared away the remainder of the superincumbent earth, and stood upon the bare lid of the coffin. The grapplers, with ropes attached to them, were then fixed in the sides and extremities, and we were in the act of raising the coffin, when the sound of a human voice, accompanied with footsteps, fell on our startled ears. We heard both distinctly, and crouched down close over the brink of the grave, awaiting in breathless suspense a corroboration of our fears. After a pause of two or three minutes, however, finding that the sounds were not renewed, we began to breathe freer, persuaded that our ears must have deceived us. Once more we resumed our work, succeeded in hoisting up the coffin-not without a slip, however, which nearly precipitated it down again to the bottom, with all four of us upon it and depositing it on the graveside. Before proceeding to use our screws or wrenchers, we once more looked and listened, and listened and looked; but neither seeing nor hearing anything we set to work, prized off the lid in a twinkling, and a transient glimpse of moonlight disclosed to us the shrouded inmate all white and damp. I removed the face-cloth, and unpinned the cap, while M-- loosed the sleeves from the wrists. Thus were we engaged, when E-, who had hold of the feet, ready to lift them out, suddenly let them go-gasped, "Oh, my God! there they are!" and placed his hand on my He shook like an aspen leaf. I looked towards the quarter whither his eyes were directed, and, sure enough, saw the figure of a man-if not two-moving stealthily toward us. "Well, we're discovered, that's clear," I whispered as calmly as I could. "We shall be murdered!" groaned E"Lend me one of the pistols you have with you," said M-resolutely; "by I'll have a shot for my life, however!" As for poor Tip, who had heard every syllable of this startling colloquy, and himself seen the approaching figures, he looked at me in silence, the image of blank horror! I could have laughed even then, to see his staring black eyes-his little cocked ruby-tinted nose-his chattering teeth. "Hush-hush!" said I, cocking my pistol, while M― did the same; for none but myself knew that they were unloaded. To add to our consternation, the malignant moon with arm. drew the small scantling of light she had been doling out to us, and sank beneath a vast cloud, "black as Erebus," but not before we had caught a glimpse of two more figures moving towards us in an opposite direction. "Surrounded!" two of us muttered in the same breath. We all rose to our feet, and stood together, not knowing what to do-unable in the darkness to see one another distinctly. Presently we heard a voice say, in a subdued tone, "Where are they? where? Sure I saw them! Oh, there they are. Halloa -halloa!" could drive him, till his career was unexpectedly ended by his tumbling-souse-head over heels, into a newly-opened grave in his path, with more than a foot of water in it. There the poor fellow remained, after recovering from the first shock of his fall, not daring to utter a word for some time, lest he should be discovered-straddling over the water with his toes and elbows stuck into the loose soil on each side, to support him. This was his interesting position, as he subsequently informed me, at the time of uttering the sounds which first attracted my attention. Though not aware of his situation at the time, I was almost choked with laughter as he went on with his soliloquy, somewhat in this strain : "Och, Tip, ye ould divel! Don't it sarve ye right, ye fool? Ye villanous ould coffinrobber! Won't ye burn for this hereafter, ye sinner? Ulaloo! When ye are dead yourself, may ye be trated like that poor cratur-and yourself alive to see it! Och, hubbaboo! hubbaboo! Isn't it sure that I'll be drowned, an' then it's kilt I'll be!" A loud splash, and a pause for a few moments, as if he were readjusting his footing-"Och! an' I'm catching my dith of cowld! Fait, an' it's a divel a drop o' the two bottles o' whisky I'll ever see Och, och, och!"-another splash-"och, an' isn't this uncomfortable! Murther and oons! if ever I come out of this-sha'n't I be dead before I do?" That was enough—the signal of our flight. Without an instant's pause, or uttering another syllable, off we sprung, like small-shot from a gun's mouth, all of us in different directions, we knew not whither. I heard the report of a gun-mercy on me! and pelted away, scarcely knowing what I was about, dodging among the graves-now coming full-butt against a plaguy tombstone, then tumbling on the slippery grass-while some one followed close at my heels, panting and puffing, but whether friend or foe I knew not. At length I stumbled against a large tombstone; and, finding it open at the two ends, crept under it, resolved there to abide the issue. At the moment of my ensconcing myself, the sound of the person's footsteps who had followed me suddenly ceased. I heard a splashing sound, then a kicking and scrambling, a faint stifled cry of "Ugh-oh ugh!" and all was still. Doubtless it must be one of my companions, who had been wounded. What could I do, however? I did not know in what direction he lay-the night was pitch-dark-and if I crept from my hidingplace, for all I knew, I might be shot myself. I shall never forget that hour-no, never! There was I, squatting like a tod on the wet grass and weeds, not daring to do more than breathe! Here was a predicament! I could not conjecture how the affair would terminate. Was I to lie where I was till daylight, that then I might step into the arms of my captors? What was become of my companions?-While turning these thoughts in my mind, and wondering that all was so quiet, my ear caught the sound of the splashing of water, apparently at but a yard or two's distance, mingled with - What is the matter wid ye? Are ye the sounds of a half-smothered human voice- kilt? Where are they all? Have they taken “Ugh! ugh! Och, murther! murther! mur-ye away, every mother's son of you?” he asked ther!"-another splash-"and isn't it dead, and drowned, and kilt I am" Whew! Tip in trouble, thought I, not daring to speak. Yes-it was poor Tip, I afterwards found-who had followed at my heels, scampering after me as fast as fright "Tip-Tip-Tip!" I whispered in a low tone. There was a dead silence. "Tip, Tip, where are you? What's the matter, eh?" No answer; but he muttered in a low tone to himself" Where am I! by my soul! Isn't it dead, and kilt, and drowned, and murthered I am-that's all!" "Tip-Tip-Tip!" I repeated, a little louder. "Tip, indeed! Fait, ye may call, bad-luck to ye-whoever ye are-but it's divel a word I'll be after spaking to ye." "Tip, you simpleton! It's I-Mr. In an instant there was a sound of jumping and splashing, as if surprise had made him slip from his standing again, and he called out, "Whoo! whoo! an' is't you, sweet Mr. eagerly, in a breath. "Why, what are you doing, Tip? Where are you?" "Fait, an' it's being washed I am, in the feet, and in the queerest tub your honour ever saw!" A noise of scuffling, not many yards you?" off, silenced us both in an instant. Presently I distinguished the voice of E- calling out -"Help, M!" (my name)-"Where are The noise increased, and seemed nearer than before. I crept from my lurking place, and aided at Tip's resurrection, when both of us hurried towards the spot whence the sound came. By the faint moonlight I could just see the outlines of two figures violently struggling and grappling together. Before I could come up to them both fell down, locked in each other's arms, rolling over each other, grasping one another's collars, gasping and panting as if in mortal struggle. The moon suddenly emerged, and who do you think, reader, was E's antagonist? Why, the person whose appearance had so discomfited and affrighted us all-oUR COACHMAN. That worthy individual, alarmed at our protracted stay, had, contrary to our injunctions, left his coach to come and search after us. He it was whom we had seen stealing towards us; his steps his voice had alarmed us, for he could not see us distinctly enough to discover whether we were his fare or not. He was on the point of whispering my name, it seemswhen we must all have understood one another -when lo! we all started off in the manner which has been described; and he himself, not knowing that he was the reason of it, had taken to his heels, and fled for his life! He supposed we had fallen into a sort of ambuscade. He happened to hide himself behind the tombstone next but one to that which sheltered E. Finding all quiet, he and E-, as if by mutual consent, were groping from their hiding-places, when they unexpectedly fell foul of one another-each too affrighted to speak and hence the scuffle. After this satisfactory denouement we all repaired to the grave's mouth, and found the corpse and coffin precisely as we had left them. We were not many moments in taking out the body, stripping it, and thrusting it into the sack we had brought. We then tied the top of the sack, carefully deposited the shroud, &c., in the coffin, re-screwed down the lidfearful, impious mockery!-and consigned it once more to its resting-place, Tip scattering a handful of earth on the lid, and exclaiming reverently-"An' may the Lord forgive us for what we have done to ye!" The coachman and I then took the body between us to the coach, leaving M- and E- and Tip to fill up the grave. Our troubles were not yet ended, however. Truly it seemed as though Providence were throwing every obstacle in our way. Nothing went right. On reaching the spot where we had left the coach, behold it lay several yards farther in the lane, tilted into the ditch-for the horses, being hungry, and left to themselves, in their anxiety to graze on the verdant bank of the hedge, had contrived to overturn the vehicle in the ditch-and one of the horses was kicking vigorously when we came up-the whole body off the ground-and resting on that of his companion. We had considerable difficulty in righting the coach, as the horses were inclined to be obstreperous. We succeeded, however-deposited our unholy spoil within, turned the horses' heads towards the high-road, and then, after enjoining Jehu to keep his place on the box, I went to see how my companions were getting on. They had nearly completed their task, and told me that "shovelling in was surprisingly easier than shovelling out!" We took great pains to leave everything as neat, and as nearly resembling what we found it as possible, in order that our visit might not be suspected. We then carried away each our own tools, and hurried as fast as possible to our coach, for the dim twilight had already stolen a march upon us, devoutly thankful that, after so many interruptions, we had succeeded in effecting our object. It was broad daylight before we reached town, and a wretched coach company we looked, all wearied and dirty-Tip especially, who nevertheless snored in the corner as comfortably as if he had been warm in his bed. I heartily resolved with him, on leaving the coach, that it should be "the devil's own dear self only that should timpt me out again bodysnatching!"1 ALL'S WELL. The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake The blow most dreaded falls to break J. G. WHITTIER. 1 On examining the body, we found that Sir's suspicions were fully verified. It was disease of the heart, but of too complicated a nature to be made intelligible to general readers. "COME, DINE WITH ME." [Joseph Hall, born at Bristow Park, Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, 1st July, 1574; died at Higham, near Norwich, 8th September, 1656. Bishop of Exeter and Norwich, successively, and the first English writer of satire. In the prologue to his satires he says: "I first adventure, follow me who list, him, becoming, as it were, a transparent fluid membrane through which the form is always seen, and not as in most men an indurated heterogeneous fabric of many dates, and of no settled character, in which the man is imprisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and the man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead He also wrote numerous sermons, meditations, and circumstances day by day, as he renews his epistles.] The courteous citizen bade me to his feast, I yielded, though he hop'd I would say nay: raiment day by day. But to us, in our lapsed estate, resting not advancing, resisting not cooperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks. We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. I should but trouble you;-pardon me if you may." We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe No pardon should I need; for, to depart He gives me leave, and thanks too, in his heart. Two words for monie, Darbishirian wise; (That's one too manie) is a naughtie guise. Who looks for double biddings to a feast, I went, then saw, and found the greate expence; For curious cost, and wondrous choice of cheere? Hadst thou such cheere? wert thou evere there before? COMPENSATIONS OF CALAMITY. The changes which break up at short intervals the prosperity of men, are advertisements of a nature whose law is growth. Evermore it is the order of nature to grow, and every soul is by this intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, and laws, and faith, as the shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly forms a new house. In proportion to the vigour of the individual, these revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are incessant, and all worldly relations hang very loosely about in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or re-create that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, "Up and onward for evermore!" We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards. And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbourhoods of men. |