make tombs for the living? I'll have
thee to the justice, sirrah, for wicked malice aforethought, and
misprision."

Here this hideous ghoul burst forth with a laugh so fearful and
portentous that even the cavalier was startled by its peculiarly
fierce and almost unearthly expression. The mouth drawn to one side,
the wide flat forehead, projecting cheek-bones, and pointed chin,
sufficiently characterised him as labouring under that sort of
imbecility not seldom unmixed with a tact and shrewdness that seem to
be characteristic of this species of disease and deformity. He set one
foot on the mattock, ceasing from his labours whilst he cried out,
winking significantly with half-shut eyes--

"When the owl hoots, and the crow cries caw,
I can tell a maiden from a jackdaw."

Here he began whistling and humming by turns, with the most consummate
and provoking indifference. The stranger was evidently disconcerted by
this unexpected mode of address, apparently meditating a retreat, from
where even victory would have been a poor triumph. He was turning
away, when a drop of blood fell on his hand! This disastrous omen,
with the grave yawning before him--the narrow dwelling, which,
according to the prediction of the artificer, was preparing for his
reception--discomposed the cavalier exceedingly, and, in all
likelihood, rendered him the more easily susceptible to subsequent
impressions.

"Art boun' for Knowsley?" inquired the hunchbacked sexton.

"Peradventure I may have an errand thither; but I am a wayfaring man,
and have business with the commissioners in these parts." There was a
tone of conscious evasion in this reply which did not pass unheeded by
the inquirer.

"If thou goest in at the door," said he, "mind thee doesn't come out
feet foremost, good master wayfarer!" He quickly changed his tone to
more of seriousness than before. "Thou art not safe. Hie thee to
Lathom."

"'Tis beleaguered again. The earl being away at his kingdom of Man,
the hornets are buzzing about his nest. There seems now no
resting-place, as aforetime, for unlucky travellers."

"For who?" shouted the sexton, climbing out of his grave with
surprising agility. He fixed his eyes on the cavalier, as though it
were the aspect of recognition. He then hummed the following distich,
a favourite troll amongst the republican party at that period:--

"The battle was foughten; the prince ran away.
Did ever ye see sic' a race, well-a-d