ed Toft, "let's have another stave. Give
us one of your odd snatches. No more corpse-candles, or that sort of
thing. Something lively--something jolly--ha, ha!"

"A good move," shouted Jack. "A lively song from _you_--lillibullero
from a death's-head--ha, ha!"

"My songs are all of a sort," returned Peter; "I am seldom asked to
sing a second time. However, you are welcome to the merriest I have."
And preparing himself, like certain other accomplished vocalists, with a
few preliminary hems and haws, he struck forth the following doleful
ditty:

THE OLD OAK COFFIN

Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim.--TIBULLUS.

In a churchyard, upon the sward, a coffin there was laid,
And leaning stood, beside the wood, a sexton on his spade.
A coffin old and black it was, and fashioned curiously,
With quaint device of carved oak, in hideous fantasie.

For here was wrought the sculptured thought of a tormented face,
With serpents lithe that round it writhe, in folded strict embrace.
Grim visages of grinning fiends were at each corner set,
And emblematic scrolls, mort-heads, and bones together met.

"Ah, welladay!" that sexton gray unto himself did cry,
"Beneath that lid much lieth hid--much awful mysterie.
It is an ancient coffin from the abbey that stood here;
Perchance it holds an abbot's bones, perchance those of a frere.

"In digging deep, where monks do sleep, beneath yon cloister shrined,
That coffin old, within the mould, it was my chance to find;
The costly carvings of the lid I scraped full carefully,
In hope to get at name or date, yet nothing could I see.

"With pick and spade I've plied my trade for sixty years and more,
Yet never found, beneath the ground, shell strange as that before;
Full many coffins have I seen--have seen them deep or flat,
Fantastical in fashion--none fantastical as that."

And saying so, with heavy blow, the lid he shattered wide,
And, pale with fright, a ghastly sight that sexton gray espied;
A miserable sight it was, that loathsome corpse to see,
The last, last, dreary, darksome stage of fall'n humanity.

Though all was gone, save reeky bone, a green and grisly heap,
With scarce a trace of fleshly face, strange posture did it keep.
The hands were clenched, the teeth were wrenched, as if the wretch
had risen,
E'en after death had ta'en his breath, to str