the saddle--"who would
exchange that sight, and the exhilarating feeling of this fresh morn,
for a couch of eiderdown, and a headache in reversion?"

"I for one," returned the sexton, sharply, "would willingly exchange it
for that, or any other couch, provided it rid me of this accursed
crupper, which galls me sorely. Moderate your pace, grandson Luke, or I
must throw myself off the horse in self-defence."

Luke slackened his charger's pace, in compliance with the sexton's wish.

"Ah! well," continued Peter, restored in a measure to comfort; "now I
can contemplate the sunrise, which you laud, somewhat at mine ease. 'Tis
a fine sight, I doubt not, to the eyes of youth; and, to the sanguine
soul of him upon whom life itself is dawning, is, I dare say,
inspiriting: but when the heyday of existence is past; when the blood
flows sluggishly in the veins; when one has known the desolating storms
which the brightest sunrise has preceded, the seared heart refuses to
trust its false glitter; and, like the experienced sailor, sees oft in
the brightest skies a forecast of the tempest. To such a one, there can
be no new dawn of the heart; no sun can gild its cold and cheerless
horizon; no breeze can revive pulses that have long since ceased to
throb with any chance emotion. I am too old to feel freshness in this
nipping air. It chills me more than the damps of night, to which I am
accustomed. Night--midnight! is my season of delight. Nature is instinct
then with secrets dark and dread. There is a language which he who
sleepeth not, but will wake, and watch, may haply learn. Strange organs
of speech hath the invisible world; strange language doth it talk;
strange communion hold with him who would pry into its mysteries. It
talks by bat and owl--by the grave-worm, and by each crawling thing--by
the dust of graves, as well as by those that rot therein--but ever doth
it discourse by night, and specially when the moon is at the full. 'Tis
the lore I have then learned that makes that season dear to me. Like
your cat, mine eye expands in darkness. I blink at the sunshine, like
your owl."

"Cease this forbidding strain," returned Luke; "it sounds as harshly as
your own screech-owl's cry. Let your thoughts take a more sprightly
turn, more in unison with my own and the fair aspect of nature."

"Shall I direct them to the gipsies' camp, then?" said Peter, with a
sneer. "Do your own thoughts tend thither?"

"You are not altogether in the