visible, though the churchyard which surrounded it was still, as upon the present occasion, used for the interment of particular persons.  One or two shattered yew-trees still grew within the precincts of that which had once been holy ground.  Warriors and barons had been buried there of old, but their names were forgotten, and their monuments demolished.  The only sepulchral memorials which remained were the upright headstones which mark the graves of persons of inferior rank.  The abode of the sexton was a solitary cottage adjacent to the ruined wall of the cemetery, but so low that, with its thatch, which nearly reached the ground, covered with a thick crop of grass, fog, and house-leeks, it resembled an overgrown grave.  On inquiry, however, Ravenswood found that the man of the last mattock was absent at a bridal, being fiddler as well as grave-digger to the vicinity.  He therefore retired to the little inn, leaving a message that early next morning he would again call for the person whose double occupation connected him at once with the house of mourning and the house of feasting.

An outrider of the Marquis arrived at Tod’s Hole shortly after, with a message, intimating that his master would join Ravenswood at that place on the following morning; and the Master, who would otherwise have proceeded to his old retreat at Wolf’s Crag, remained there accordingly to give meeting to his noble kinsman.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Hamlet:  Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave making.  Horatio:  Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.  Hamlet:  ’Tis e’en so:  the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

     Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.

The sleep of Ravenswood was broken by ghastly and agitating visions, and his waking intervals disturbed by melancholy reflections on the past and painful anticipations of the future.  He was perhaps the only traveller who ever slept in that miserable kennel without complaining of his lodgings, or feeling inconvenience from their deficiencies.  It is when “the mind is free the body’s delicate.”  Morning, however, found the Master an early riser, in hopes that the fresh air of the dawn might afford the refreshment which night had refused him.  He took his way towards the solitary burial-ground, which lay about half a mile from the inn.

The thin blue smoke, which already began to curl upward, and to distinguish the cottage of the living from the habitation of the dead, apprised him that its inmate had returned and was stirring.  Accordingly, on entering the little churchyard, he saw the old man labouring in a half-made grave.  “My destiny,” thought Ravenswood, “seems to lead me to scenes of fate and of death; but these are childish thoughts, and they shall not master me.  I will not again suffer my imagination to beguile my senses.”  The old man rested on his spade as the Master approached him, as if to receive his commands; and as he did not immediately speak, the sexton opened the discourse in his own way.