Hilton, which a man was in the act of posting up. It was as follows:—
FELONY.
Fifty Guineas Reward!
Whereas, late last night, or early this morning, some villain or villains, unknown, entered the churchyard of Hilton, and feloniously stole the body and the grave-clothes of a person therein buried, and have thus incurred the penalty of transportation: Any person giving information that may lead to the discovery of the offender, or offenders, shall receive Twenty Guineas reward upon his or their apprehension, and a further reward of Thirty Guineas upon conviction.
I do not know that the horrible witness of the night affected me more strangely than this announcement. The body gone and the grave clothes! I read and re-read the words until the very idea sickened me. The unearthly sounds we had heard, all now bore a fearful interpretation.
I turned away from the contemplation of this infernal placard, repeating unconsciously, “the body and the grave-clothes—the body and the grave-clothes!” Suddenly I started at full speed to Balfour’s. Judge of my alarm and distress when I found the street-door wide open, and the household in great confusion. Mr. Bromfield and Fletcher, with several neighbouring practitioners in the sick-room, drawn thither by strange reports of Balfour’s extraordinary state. As I entered the apartment, Balfour, a dying man, rose upright in his bed, and with the same ghastly expression he wore in the dissecting-room, pointed at me with outstretched arms, and exclaimed, in a voice that haunted my dreams for months afterwards:
“See, it comes again! The grave is opened! I am in the Valley of the Shadow of Death—it grows darker and darker—I—go”
He gradually stiffened in this fearful attitude, and in a few minutes was a corpse. So ends my noctuary of terror.
THE AGREEABLE MONK.
My Agreeable Monk is no mediæval monastic, with serge gown and knotted cord; and the nearest approach that he ever makes to such a costume is when he takes his ease in his rich figured dressing-gown tied about with a bell-pull. And yet, in his aptitude for hilarity and good living, is he like to those monks of old, who sang, and laughed, and the rich wine quaffed, and lived on the daintiest fare. But my Agreeable Monk has not yet reached to his mediæval age, not having been born until this present century had quite run out of its teens; and though, like the gentlemen just alluded to, he very frequently laughs ha! ha! with a heartiness that is infectious, yet I may venture to say, that he so far comes short of his models in that he has never quaffed ha! ha! the recipe for that peculiar beverage having been lost in the mediæval mists.
My Agreeable Monk, too, has no circular spot shaven upon the top of his crown, a veritable crown-piece gleaming like silver from its dark boundary of hair; neither has he smoothly-shaven Jesuitical cheeks, such as we meet with on the countenances of theatrical gentlemen, Popish priests, and other actors, where the blueness of the mown surface interposes with marked effect between the red and white of cheek and choker. On the contrary, my Agreeable Monk can boast a capillary development of hyacinthine locks, and whiskers that are only tamed down from a militant air, by being trimmed and curled to the meekness of the lady-killer. No recluse, or ascetic is he, but a “muscular Christian;” still able, if need be, to use his fists in self-defence; still vigorous to pull an oar; still ready to ride across country whenever he can frame an excuse for “a short cut;” and with his lungs still in a highly healthy condition to bear their part in secular glees or to chant the service in Cathedral. For, in a Minor degree, he is one of its dignitaries; and, within its timeworn precincts, possesses a snug monastic retreat, admirably adapted to modern tastes and ideas.
It lies hard by the sacred building. The giant shadow of the great central tower steals over it in the summer’s sunset; and the prebendal rooks and jackdaws take it under their protection as an important portion of ecclesiastical property. We go round by the Lady Chapel, by a broad walk between level plots of turf, and passing under a low, dark, groined archway, find ourselves in cool grey cloisters, enclosing a square green lawn bright with flower-knots, on which we gaze through the unglazed windows. Pleasant is it on a July day to struggle out of the glaring sunshine into the refreshing retreat of these cool cloisters,—to pace their paved walks on their northern and western sides, and watch the golden light glowing on the other sides of the square, bringing out into all the sharpness of shine and shade the bright flower-knots, the creeping masses of ivy, the mullioned windows, and buttresses, and battlements, and warming up the queer old Gargoyles into fresh leers and laughter.
Along a shady side, and then we step into patches of sunlight; and, after passing some half-dozen doors (but no windows), we come to a portal whose formidable look of united oak and iron is considerably enlivened by a door-plate and letter-box in the newest style of mediæval enrichment. Fascinated by the gay colours, we peruse the rubric legends, and, trout-like, swallow the bait. A tug, and we are hauled within, and in a trice are landed in the domains of our Agreeable Monk.
An oak-panelled hall, matted under foot. On one wall the Oxford Almanack, mediævally framed; on the other side, over a Gothic oak hall-table, a framed and emblazoned list of anthems and cathedral-services for the week. Hard by, over-coats, boating-hats, chimney-pot-hats, and college-caps; then surplices and hoods, pendant from the wall, where at night, as I walk by them, they look like the ghosts of murdered minor-canons. And (Nota Bene!) not far from them, a cupboard lurking beneath the stairs; and, within it, a goodly store of pipes and tobacco. Down the hall, and to the further end of a passage, and we pass through a door.
A tolerably large and lofty room, of collegiate character, luxurious, and comfortable. The doors