he garden, and were afraid." This
apprehension still clings to us; but, though surrounded in light, as
well as in darkness, by a world of disembodied spirits, whose
attributes and capacities are inconceivably superior to our own, our
nature is so material, and our very essence so engrossed and
identified with earth, that it is only when the startling realities of
their existence become manifest in those visible emblems of their
nature--darkness and death--that we shrink back in horror, lest our
very being should suffer contact with spiritual and eternal things.

Concealed from view, Marian stood still at a very short distance from
the grave. Steenie was humming a plaintive ditty, or rather dirge; for
it partook of a double character, something between an alehouse
roundelay and a funeral chant.

She soon perceived that each spadeful, as it was thrown out, was
accompanied by a separate distich, the meaning of which she could
distinctly gather from some uncouth and barbarous rhymes--the
remnants, probably, of a more superstitious age--almost cabalistic in
their form and acceptation. The following may serve as a specimen,
though we have taken the precaution to render them a little more
intelligible:--

"Howk, hack, and dig spade;
Tenant ne'er grumbled that grave was ill made."

Then came a heavy spadeful of earth again from the narrow house.
Another shovelful produced the following doggerel:--

"Housen, and castles, and kings decay;
But the biggins we big last till doomus-day."

Some more coarse and less intelligible jargon followed, which it is
not needful that we repeat. Again he threw forth a burden of more than
ordinary bulk, resting from his labours during the following more
elaborate ditty:--

"Dark and dreary though it be,
Thou shalt all its terrors dree:
Dungeon dark, where none complain,
Nor 'scape to tell its woe and pain."

Again he bent him to his task, and again the earth went rolling forth,
accompanied by something like the following verse:--

"Though I dig for him that be living yet,
O'er this narrow gulf he shall never get;
The mouth gapes wide that 'Enough' ne'er cries;
Each clod that I fling on his bosom lies;
In darkness and coldness it rests on thee,
With the last stroke that falls thy doom shall be!"

With increasing energy did he work on, as though to accelerate the
fate of his victim. Marian felt herself on the brink