he waits the continual passage of his contemporaries, falling like
minute drops into eternity. As they fall, he counts them; and this
enumeration, which was at first perhaps appalling to his soul, in
the process of years and by the kindly influence of habit grows to
be his pride and pleasure. There are many common stories telling
how he piques himself on crowded cemeteries. But I will rather
tell of the old grave-digger of Monkton, to whose unsuffering
bedside the minister was summoned. He dwelt in a cottage built
into the wall of the church-yard; and through a bull's-eye pane
above his bed he could see, as he lay dying, the rank grasses and
the upright and recumbent stones. Dr. Laurie was, I think, a
Moderate: 'tis certain, at least, that he took a very Roman view of
deathbed dispositions; for he told the old man that he had lived
beyond man's natural years, that his life had been easy and
reputable, that his family had all grown up and been a credit to
his care, and that it now behoved him unregretfully to gird his
loins and follow the majority. The grave-digger heard him out;
then he raised himself upon one elbow, and with the other hand
pointed through the window to the scene of his life-long labours.
"Doctor," he said, "I ha'e laid three hunner and fower-score in
that kirkyaird; an it had been His wull," indicating Heaven, "I
would ha'e likit weel to ha'e made out the fower hunner." But it
was not to be; this tragedian of the fifth act had now another part
to play; and the time had come when others were to gird and carry
him.


II