He went out into the yard, and walked near the northerly corner, where Dr. Caner’s house formerly stood, which was afterwards occupied, as the Boston Athenæum, and, more recently, gave place to the present Savings Bank. “Here,” said he, “thirty years ago, Dinah Furbush, a worthy, negro woman, was buried. The careless carpenter made her coffin one foot too short; and, to conceal his blunder, chopped off Dinah’s head, and, clapping it between her feet, nailed down the lid. This scandalous transaction came to my knowledge, and I grieve to say, that I never communicated it to the wardens.”—“Well, Martin,” said I, “what more?”—“Nothing, thank Heaven!” he replied. Giving way to an irresistible impulse, I broke forth into a roar of laughter, so long and loud, that three watchmen gathered to the wall, and seeing Martin Smith, whom they well knew, with the bottom of his shroud, exhibited below his great coat, they dropped their hooks and rattles, and ran for their lives. Martin walked slowly back to the church, and I followed.
He walked in, among the tombs—thousands of spirits seemed to welcome his advent—but, as I crossed the threshold, at the tramp of a living foot, they vanished, in a moment.
“How many corpses have you lifted, my old friend, in your six and thirty years of office?” “About five thousand,” he replied, “exclusive of babies. It is a very grateful employment, when one becomes used to it.”
“I have heard,” continued Martin, “that the office of executioner, in Paris, is highly respectable, and has been hereditary, for many years, in the family of the Sansons. I have done all in my power, to elevate our profession; and it is my highest ambition, that the office should continue in my family; and that my descendants may be sextons, till the graves shall give up their dead, and death itself be swallowed up in victory.” I was sensibly touched, by the enthusiasm of this good old official; for I honor the man, who honors his calling. I could not refrain from saying a few kind and respectful words, of the old man’s son and successor. He was moved—“The eyes of ghosts,” said he, “are tearless, or I should weep. You have heard,” continued the old man, in a low, tremulous voice, “that, when the mother of Washington was complimented, by some distinguished men, upon the achievements of her son, she went on with her knitting, saying, ‘Well, George always was a good boy’—now, I need say no more of Frank; and, in truth, I can say no less. I knew he would be a sexton. He has forgotten it, I dare say; but he was not satisfied with the first go-cart he ever had, till he had fashioned it, like a hearse. He took hold right, from the beginning. When I resigned, and gave him the keys, and felt, that I should no more walk up and down the broad aisle, as I had done, for so many years, I wept like a child.”
“Yours has been a hale old age. You have always been temperate, I believe,” said I.—“No,” the old man replied, “I have always been abstinent. Like yourself, I use no intoxicating drink, upon any occasion, nor tobacco, in any of its forms, and we have come, as you say, to a hale old age. I have seen drunken sextons squirt tobacco juice over the coffin and pall; and let the corpse go by the run; and I know more than one successor of St. Peter, in this city, who smoke and chew, from morning to night; and give the sextons great trouble, in cleaning up after them.”
We had advanced midway, among the tombs.—“It is awfully cold and dark here, Martin,” said I, “and I hear something, like a mysterious breathing in the air; and, now and then, it seems as if a feather brushed my cheek.”—“Is it unpleasant?” said the old man.—“Not particularly agreeable,” I replied.—“The spirits are aware, that another is added to their number,” said he, “and even the presence of one, in the flesh, will scarcely restrain them from coming forth. I will send them back to their dormitories.” He lighted a spirit lamp, not in the vulgar sense of that word, but a lamp, before whose rays no spirit, however determined, could stand, for an instant.
There is comfort, even in a farthing rush light—I felt warmer. “What a subterraneous life you must have had of it,” said I, “and how many tears and sighs you must have witnessed!” “Why yes,” he replied, with a shake of the head, and a sigh, “the duties of my office have given to my features an expression of universal compassion—a sort of omnibus look, which has caused many a mourner to say—‘Ah, Mr. Smith, I see how much you feel for me.’ And I’m sure I did; not perhaps quite so keenly as I might, if I had been less frequently encored in the performance of my melancholy part. Yes,” continued the old man—“I have witnessed tears and sighs, and deep grief, and shallow, and raving—for a month, and life-long; very proper tears, gushing from the eyes of widows, already wooed and won; and from the eyes of widowers, who, in a right melancholy way, had predetermined the mothers, for their orphan children. But passages have occurred, now and then, all in my sad vocation, pure and holy, and soul-stirring enough, to give pulse to a heart of stone.”
The old man took from his pocket a master key, and beckoned me to follow. He opened an ancient tomb. The mouldy shells were piled one upon another, and a few rusty fragments of that flimsy garniture, which was in vogue of old, had fallen on the bricks below.
“Sacred to the memory!” said the old man, with a sad, significant smile, upon his intelligent features, as he removed the coffin of a child. I looked into the little receptacle, as he raised the lamp. “This,” said he, “was the most beautiful boy I ever buried.” “This?” said I, for the little narrow house contained nothing but a small handful of grayish dust. “Aye,” he replied, “I see; it is all gone now—it is twelve years since I looked at it last—there were some remnants of bones then, and a lock or two of golden hair. This small deposit was one of the first that I made, in this melancholy savings bank. Six-and-thirty years! So tender and so frail a thing may well be turned to dust.
“Time is an alchymist, Abner, as you and I well know. If tears could have embalmed, it would not have been thus. I have never witnessed such agony. The poor, young mother lies there. She was not seventeen, when she died. In a luckless hour, she married a very gentlemanly sot, and left her native home, for a land of strangers. Hers was the common fate of such unequal bargains. He wasted her little property, died of intemperance, and left her nothing, but this orphan boy. And all the love of her warm, young heart was turned upon this child. It had, to be sure, the sweetest, catching smile, that I ever beheld.