uried in the
year '93. Why, look at the coffin this skull belongs to, 'tid go into
powdher between your fingers; 'tis nothin' but tindher.'

'I believe you're right, Mr. Mattocks.'

'Phiat! to be sure. 'Tis longer undher ground by thirty years, good, or
more maybe.'

Just then the slim figure of my tall mild uncle, the curate, appeared,
and his long thin legs, in black worsted stockings and knee-breeches,
stepped reverently and lightly among the graves. The men raised their
hats, and Mattocks jumped lightly into the grave again, while my uncle
returned their salute with the sad sort of smile, a regretful kindness,
which he never exceeded, in these solemn precincts.

It was his custom to care very tenderly for the bones turned up by the
sexton, and to wait with an awful solicitude until, after the reading of
the funeral service, he saw them gently replaced, as nearly as might be,
in their old bed; and discouraging all idle curiosity or levity
respecting them, with a solemn rebuke, which all respected. Therefore it
was, that so soon as he appeared the skull was, in Hibernian phrase,
'dropt like a hot potato,' and the grave-digger betook himself to his
spade so nimbly.

'Oh! Uncle Charles,' I said, taking his hand, and leading him towards
the foot of the grave; 'such a wonderful skull has come up! It is shot
through with a bullet, and cracked with a poker besides.'

''Tis thrue for him, your raverence; he was murthered twiste over,
whoever he was--rest his sowl;' and the sexton, who had nearly completed
his work, got out of the grave again, with a demure activity, and
raising the brown relic with great reverence, out of regard for my good
uncle, he turned it about slowly before the eyes of the curate, who
scrutinised it, from a little distance, with a sort of melancholy
horror.

'Yes, Lemuel,' said my uncle, still holding my hand, ''twas undoubtedly
a murder; ay, indeed! He sustained two heavy blows, beside that gunshot
through the head.'

''Twasn't gunshot, Sir; why the hole 'id take in a grape-shot,' said an
old fellow, just from behind my uncle, in a pensioner's cocked hat,
leggings, and long old-world red frock-coat, speaking with a harsh reedy
voice, and a grim sort of reserved smile.

I moved a little aside, with a sort of thrill, to give him freer access
to my uncle, in the hope that he might, perhaps, throw a light upon the
history of this remarkable memorial. The old fellow had a rat-like gray
eye--the