aid upon the men who have been called Dukes of
Buckingham?

What foolish lamentations am I scribbling in this diary, which is
intended to be only the baldest record of events! It is so natural to
mankind to complain, that, having no ear in which to utter his
discontent, a man is fain to resort to pen and ink.

I devoted my evening to conversation with the landlord and his wife,
but found that the name of Haygarth was as strange to them as if it had
been taken from an inscription in the tomb of the Pharaohs. I inquired
about the few inhabitants of the village, and ascertained that the
oldest man in the place is the sexton, native-born, and supposed by
mine host never to have travelled twenty miles from his birthplace. His
name is Peter Drabbles. What extraordinary names that class of people
contrive to have! My first business to-morrow morning will be to find
my friend Drabbles--another ancient mariner, no doubt--and to examine
the parish registers.

_Oct. 7th_. A misty morning, and a perpetual drizzle--to say nothing of
a damp, penetrating cold, which creeps through the thickest overcoat,
and chills one to the bone. I do not think Spotswold can have much
brightness or prettiness even on the fairest summer morning that ever
beautified the earth. I know that, seen as I see it to-day, the place
is the very archetype of all that is darksome, dull, desolate, dismal,
and dreary. (How odd, by the way, that all that family of epithets
should have the same initial!) A wide stretch of moorland lies around
and about the little village, which crouches in a hollow, like some
poor dejected animal that seeks to shelter itself from the bitter
blast. On the edge of the moorland, and above the straggling cottages
and the little inn, rises the massive square tower of an old church, so
far out of proportion to the pitiful cluster of houses, that I imagine
it must be the remnant of some monastic settlement.

Towards this church I made my way, under the dispiriting drip, drip of
the rain, and accompanied by a feeble old man, who is sexton, clerk,
gravedigger, and anything or everything of an official nature.

We went into the church after my ancient mariner No. 2 had fumbled a
good deal with a bunch of ghostly-looking keys. The door opened with a
dismal scroop, and shut with an appalling bang. Grim and dark as the
church is without, it is grimmer and darker within, and damp and
vault-like, _a faire fremir_. There are all the mysterious