"What think you of the night, Mr. Palmer?" asked the sexton of Jack, for he was the anxious investigator of the weather. "Don't know--can't say--set in, I think--cursed unlucky--for the funeral, I mean--we shall be drowned if we go." "And drunk if we stay," rejoined Peter. "But never fear, it will hold up, depend upon it, long before we can start. Where have they put the prisoner?" asked he, with a sudden change of manner. "I know the room, but can't describe it; it's two or three doors down the lower corridor of the eastern gallery." "Good. Who are on guard?" "Titus Tyrconnel and that swivel-eyed quill-driver, Coates." "Enough." "Come, come, Master Peter," roared Toft, "let's have another stave. Give us one of your odd snatches. No more corpse-candles, or that sort of thing. Something lively--something jolly--ha, ha!" "A good move," shouted Jack. "A lively song from _you_--lillibullero from a death's-head--ha, ha!" "My songs are all of a sort," returned Peter; "I am seldom asked to sing a second time. However, you are welcome to the merriest I have." And preparing himself, like certain other accomplished vocalists, with a few preliminary hems and haws, he struck forth the following doleful ditty: THE OLD OAK COFFIN Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim.--TIBULLUS. In a churchyard, upon the sward, a coffin there was laid, And leaning stood, beside the wood, a sexton on his spade. A coffin old and black it was, and fashioned curiously, With quaint device of carved oak, in hideous fantasie. For here was wrought the sculptured thought of a tormented face, With serpents lithe that round it writhe, in folded strict embrace. Grim visages of grinning fiends were at each corner set, And emblematic scrolls, mort-heads, and bones together met. "Ah, welladay!" that sexton gray unto himself did cry, "Beneath that lid much lieth hid--much awful mysterie. It is an ancient coffin from the abbey that stood here; Perchance it holds an abbot's bones, perchance those of a frere. "In digging deep, where monks do sleep, beneath yon cloister shrined, That coffin old, within the mould, it was my chance to find; The costly carvings of the lid I scraped full carefully, In hope to get at name or date, yet nothing could I see. "With pick and spade I've plied my trade for sixty years and more, Yet never found, beneath the ground, shell strange as that before; Full many coffins have I seen--have seen them deep or flat, Fantastical in fashion--none fantastical as that." And saying so, with heavy blow, the lid he shattered wide, And, pale with fright, a ghastly sight that sexton gray espied; A miserable sight it was, that loathsome corpse to see, The last, last, dreary, darksome stage of fall'n humanity.