window upon the dingy mahogany pulpit, and flinging a rich lustre upon
the faded tints of an ancient banner. And now once more we were outside
the building, where, against the wall, stood a low-eaved pent-house, into
which we looked. It was half filled with substances of some kind, which
at first looked like large gray stones. The greater part were lying in
layers; some, however, were seen in confused and mouldering heaps, and
two or three, which had perhaps rolled down from the rest, lay separately
on the floor. 'Skulls, madam,' said the sexton; 'skulls of the old
Danes! Long ago they came pirating into these parts; and then there
chanced a mighty shipwreck, for God was angry with them, and He sunk
them; and their skulls, as they came ashore, were placed here as a
memorial. There were many more when I was young, but now they are fast
disappearing. Some of them must have belonged to strange fellows, madam.
Only see that one; why, the two young gentry can scarcely lift it!' And,
indeed, my brother and myself had entered the Golgotha, and commenced
handling these grim relics of mortality. One enormous skull, lying in a
corner, had fixed our attention, and we had drawn it forth. Spirit of
eld, what a skull was yon!

{picture:'Skulls, madam,' said the sexton; 'skulls of the old Danes.':
page18.jpg}

I still seem to see it, the huge grim thing; many of the others were
large, strikingly so, and appeared fully to justify the old man's
conclusion that their owners must have been strange fellows; but,
compared with this mighty mass of bone, they looked small and diminutive
like those of pigmies; it must have belonged to a giant, one of those red-
haired warriors of whose strength and stature such wondrous tales are
told in the ancient chronicles of the north, and whose grave-hills, when
ransacked, occasionally reveal secrets which fill the minds of puny