ce than the sexton. Like
many other seers, he had not, in all probability, calculated upon the
fulfilment of his predictions, and he now stared aghast at the extent of
his own foreknowledge.

"I tell 'ee what, Master Peter," said Plant, shaking his bullet-head,
"it be well for thee thou didn't live in my grandfather's time, or
thou'dst ha' been ducked in a blanket; or may be burnt at the stake,
like Ridley and Latimer, as we read on--but however that may be, ye
shall hear how poor Toft's death came to pass, and nobody can tell 'ee
better nor I, seeing I were near to him, poor fellow, at the time. Well,
we thought as how the storm were all over--and had all got into order of
march, and were just beginning to step up the avenue, the coffin-bearers
pushing lustily along, and the torches shining grandly, when poor Simon
Toft, who could never travel well in liquor in his life, reeled to one
side, and staggering against the first huge lime-tree, sat himself down
beneath it--thou knowest the tree I mean."

"The tree of fate," returned Peter. "I ought, methinks, to know it."

"Well, I were just stepping aside to pick him up, when all at once there
comes such a crack of thunder, and, whizzing through the trees, flashed
a great globe of red fire, so bright and dazzlin', it nearly blinded me;
and when I opened my eyes, winkin' and waterin', I see'd that which
blinded me more even than the flash--that which had just afore been poor
Simon, but which was now a mass o' black smouldering ashes, clean
consumed and destroyed--his clothes rent to a thousand tatters--the
earth and stones tossed up, and scattered all about, and a great
splinter of the tree lying beside him."

"Heaven's will be done!" said the sexton; "this is an awful judgment."

"And Sathan cast down; for this is a spice o' his handiwork," muttered
Plant; adding, as he slunk away, "If ever Peter Bradley do come to the
blanket, dang me if I don't lend a helpin' hand."

_CHAPTER IV_

_THE FUNERAL_

How like a silent stream, shaded by night,
And gliding softly with our windy sighs,
Moves the whole frame of this solemnity!
Tears, sighs, and blacks, filling the simile!
Whilst I, the only murmur in this grove
Of death, thus hollowly break forth.

_The Fatal Dowry._

Word being given that the funeral train was fast approaching, the church
door was thrown open, and the assemblage divid