as this from my ancient with unutterable
expenditure of time and trouble, I next set to work upon the registers.

If the ink manufactured in the present century is of no more durable
nature than that abominable fluid employed in the penmanship of a
hundred years ago, I profoundly pity the generations that are to come
after us. The registers of Spotswold might puzzle a Bunsen. However,
bearing in mind the incontrovertible fact that three thousand pounds is
a very agreeable sum of money, I stuck to my work for upwards of two
hours, and obtained as a result the following entries:--

"1. Matthew Haygarthe, aged foure yeares, berrid in this churcheyarde,
over against ye tombe off Mrs. Marttha Stileman, about 10 fete fromm ye
olde yue tre. Febevarie 6th, 1753."

"2. Mary Haygarthe, aged twentie sevene yeers, berrid under ye yue
tree, Nov. 21, 1754."

After copying these two entries, I went out into the churchyard to look
for Mary Haygarth's grave.

Under a fine old yew--which had been old a hundred years ago, it
seems--I found huddled amongst other headstones one so incrusted with
moss, that it was only after scraping the parasite verdure from the
stone with my penknife that I was able to discover the letters that had
been cut upon it. I found at last a brief inscription:

"Here lieth ye body of MARY HAYGARTH, aged 27. Born 1727. Died 1754.
This stone has been set up by one who sorroweth without hope of
consolation." A strange epitaph: no scrap of Latin, no text from
Scripture, no conventional testimony to the virtues and accomplishments
of the departed, no word to tell whether the dead woman had been maid,
wife, or widow. It was the most provoking inscription for a lawyer or a
genealogist, but such as might have pleased a poet.

I fancy this Mary Haygarth must have been some quiet creature, with
very few friends to sorrow for her loss; perhaps only that one person
who sorrowed without hope of consolation.

Such a tombstone might have been set above the grave of that simple
maid who dwelt "beside the banks of Dove."

This is the uttermost that my patience or ingenuity can do for me at
Spotswold. I have exhausted every possibility of obtaining further
information. So, having written and posted my report to Sheldon, I have
no more to do but to return to Ullerton. I take back with me nothing
but the copy of the two entries in the register of burials. Who this
Matthew Haygarth or this Mary Haygarth was, and how related