All that night I was troubled with strange dreams, peopled by phantoms from the neighboring churchyard; but a bona fide ghost I cannot say I saw. In the morning I rose very early, and took a look from the window, but the prospect was very uninviting. The churchyard was a bleak, desolate place, overgrown with weeds, and studded with slate stones, bounded by a ruinous brick wall, and having an entrance through a dilapidated gateway. One or two melancholy-looking cows were feeding on the rank herbage that sprang from the unctuous soil, spurning many a hic jacet with their cloven hoofs. But afar, in the most distant part of the field, I espied the figure of a man who was busily occupied in digging a grave. There was something within that impelled me to stroll forth and accost him. I dressed, descended, and having ordered breakfast, left the inn, clambered over the ruinous wall, and stood within the precincts of the burial-place. The spot had evidently been used for the purposes of sepulture for a number of years, for the ground rose into numerous hillocks, and I could hardly walk a step without stumbling upon some grassy mound. Even where the perishable gravestones had been shattered by the hand of time, the length of the elevations enabled me to judge of the age of the deceased. This slight swell rose over the remains of some beloved child, who had been committed to the dust with only the simple ceremonies of the Protestant faith, bedewed by the tears of parents, and blessed by the broken voice of farewell affection. This mound, of larger dimension, was heaped above the giant frame of manhood. Some sturdy tiller of the soil, or rough dweller in the forest, perhaps cut off by a sudden casualty, had been laid here in his last leaden sleep—no more to start at the rising beam of the sun, no more to rush to the glorious excitement of the hunt, no more to pant in noonday toil. Over the whole field of the dead there seemed to brood the spirit of desolation. Stern heads, rudely chiselled, from the grave stones, and frightful emblems met the eye at every turn. Here was none of that simple elegance with which modern taste loves to invest the memorials of the departed; no graceful acacias, or nodding elms, or sorrowing willows shed their dews upon the turf—every thing spoke of the bitterness of parting, of the agony of the last hour, of the passing away from earth—nothing of the reunion in heaven!
I passed on to where the grave digger was pursuing his occupation. He answered my morning salutation civilly enough, but continued intent upon his work. He was a man of about fifty years of age, spare, but strong, with gray hair, and sunken cheeks, and certain lines about the mouth which augured a propensity to indulge in dry jest, though the sternness of his gray eye seemed to contradict the tacit assertion.
"An unpleasant morning, sir, to work in the open air," said I.
"He that regardeth the clouds shall not reap," replied the grave digger, still plying his spade. "Death stalks abroad fair day and foul day, and we that follow in his footsteps must prepare for the dead, rain or shine."
"A melancholy occupation."
"A fit one for a moralist. Some would find a pleasure in it. Deacon Giles, I am sure, would willingly be in my place now."
"And why so?"
"This grave is for his wife," replied the grave digger, looking up from his occupation with a dry smile that wrinkled his sallow cheek and distorted his shrunken lips. Perceiving that his merriment was not infectious, he resumed his employment, and that so assiduously, that in a very short time he had hollowed the last resting-place of Deacon Giles's consort. This done, he ascended from the trench with a lightness that surprised me, and walking a few paces from the new-made grave, sat down upon a tombstone, and beckoned me to approach. I did so.
"Young man," said he, "a sexton and a grave digger, if he is one who has a zeal for his calling, becomes something of an historian, amassing many a curious tale and strange legend concerning the people with whom he has to do, living and dead. For a man with a taste for his profession cannot provide for the last repose of his fellows without taking an interest in their story, the manner of their death, and the concern of the relatives who follow their remains so tearfully to the grave."
"Then," replied I, taking a seat beside the sexton, "methinks you could relate some interesting tales."