“No, no, mother,” replied Wardle; “he says there’s a snow-drift, and a wind that’s piercing cold. I should know that, by the way it rumbles in the chimney.” “Ah!” said the old lady, “there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect—just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas eve, too; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub.” “The story about what?” said Mr. Pickwick. “Oh, nothing—nothing,” replied Wardle. “About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins.” “Suppose!” ejaculated the old lady. “Is there any body hardy enough to disbelieve it? Suppose! Haven’t you heard ever since you were a child, that he _was_ carried away by the goblins, and don’t you know he was?” “Very well, mother, he was, if you like,” said Wardle, laughing. “He _was_ carried away by goblins, Pickwick; and there’s an end of the matter.” “No, no,” said Mr. Pickwick, “not an end of it, I assure you; for I must hear how, and why, and all about it.” Wardle smiled, as every head was bent forward to hear; and filling out the wassail with no stinted hand, nodded a health to Mr. Pickwick, and began as follows— But bless our editorial heart, what a long chapter we have been betrayed into! We had quite forgotten all such petty restrictions as chapters, we solemnly declare. So here goes, to give the goblin a fair start in a new one. A clear stage and no favour for the goblins, ladies and gentlemen, if you please. [Illustration] CHAPTER II THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON [Illustration] “In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago—so long, that the story must be a true one, because our great grandfathers implicitly believed it—there officiated as sexton and grave-digger in the church-yard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world, and I once had the honour of being on intimate terms with a mute, who in private life, and off duty, was as comical and jocose a little fellow as ever chirped out a devil-may-care song, without a hitch in his memory, or drained off a good stiff glass of grog without stopping for breath. But notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, Gabriel Grub was an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow—a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket; and who eyed each merry face as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill-humour, as it was difficult to meet without feeling something the worse for.