lumpish top of his nose, on the side of which stood a big wart, and he
carried a great walking-cane over his shoulder, and bore, as it seemed
to me, an intimidating, but caricatured resemblance to an old portrait
of Oliver Cromwell in my Whig grandfather's parlour.

'You don't think it a bullet wound, Sir?' said my uncle, mildly, and
touching his hat--for coming of a military stock himself, he always
treated an old soldier with uncommon respect.

'Why, please your raverence,' replied the man, reciprocating his
courtesy; 'I _know_ it's not.'

'And what _is_ it, then, my good man?' interrogated the sexton, as one
in authority, and standing on his own dunghill.

'The trepan,' said the fogey, in the tone in which he'd have cried
'attention' to a raw recruit, without turning his head, and with a
scornful momentary skew-glance from his gray eye.

'And do you know whose skull that was, Sir?' asked the curate.

'Ay do I, Sir, _well_,' with the same queer smile, he answered. 'Come,
now, you're a grave-digger, my fine fellow,' he continued, accosting the
sexton cynically; 'how long do you suppose that skull's been under
ground?'

'Long enough; but not so long, _my_ fine fellow, as yours has been above
ground.'

'Well, you're right there, for _I_ seen him buried,' and he took the