ful, perhaps, whether he carried a maniac or a malefactor. Still he
took his chance for the promised reward, and galloped his horse, while I,
tortured with suspense, yelled my frantic incentives to further speed.

At last, in a space immeasurably short, but which to me was protracted
almost beyond endurance, we reached the spot. I halloed to the sexton,
who was now employed upon another grave, to follow me. I myself seized a
mattock, and in obedience to my incoherent and agonised commands, he
worked as he had never worked before. The crumbling mould flew swiftly to
the upper soil--deeper and deeper, every moment, grew the narrow
grave--at last I sobbed, "Thank God--thank God," as I saw the face of the
coffin emerge; a few seconds more and it lay upon the sward beside me,
and we both, with the edges of our spades, ripped up the lid.

_There_ was the corpse--but not the tranquil statue I had seen it last.
Its knees were both raised, and one of its little hands drawn up and
clenched near its throat, as if in a feeble but agonised struggle to
force up the superincumbent mass. The eyes, that I had last seen closed,
were now open, and the face no longer serenely pale, but livid and
distorted.

I had time to see all in an instant; the whole scene reeled and darkened
before me, and I swooned away.

When I came to myself, I found that I had been removed to the
vestry-room. The open coffin was in the aisle of the church, surrounded
by a curious crowd. A medical gentleman had examined the body carefully,
and had pronounced life totally extinct. The trepidation and horror I
experienced were indescribable. I felt like the murderer of my own child.
Desperate as I was of any chance of its life, I dispatched messengers for
no less than three of the most eminent physicians then practising in
London. All concurred--the child was now as dead as any other, the oldest
tenant of the churchyard.

Notwithstanding which, I would not permit the body to be reinterred for
several days, until the symptoms of decay became unequivocal, and the
most fantastic imagination could no longer cherish a doubt. This,
however, I mention only parenthetically, as I hasten to the conclusion of
my narrative. The circumstance which I have last described found its way
to the public, and caused no small sensation at the time.

I drove part of the way home, and then discharged the cab, and walked the
remainder. On my way, with an emotion of ecstasy I cannot descr