A favourite theatre for these dark deeds was the banks of the Forth, along which are to be seen many of those small unprotected graveyards which, attached to villages, are as the shadow of the life that is within them. Yes, grave or merry as the hamlet may be, that shadow is never awanting--often within the sound of the marriage-dance, and refusing to be illumined by the light of man's earthly happiness. Sometimes in poetics called the gnome that points to eternity, no man can but for a few brief moments of seducing joy keep his eye from the contemplation of it; and, whether he can or not, he must be content to lie within its dark outline. These are common thoughts, which are sometimes condemned as a species of moralising; yet surprise will not the less pass even into vertigo when we think of individuals of the same species reversing rites which even lower instincts shudder to touch. We are always looking for seriousness in nature, and it is long till we are forced to confess that she is continually mocking us. "_Usque adeo, res humanas vis abdita quædam Obterit et pulchros fasceis sævasque secureis Proculcare ac_ LUDIBRIO SIBI HABERE _videtur_." On one occasion our anatomist, having got a companion up to the point of courage, resolved to pay a night-visit to one of these outlying places, where, from information he had gained, there had been deposited an object which had a charm to him other than that of the mere "thing." The man had died of a disease which the country practitioner had reported to Liston as something which had stimulated his curiosity, but which he could not be permitted by the friends to inquire into in the manner so much desired by doctors. The two knights got themselves arrayed as sailors--with the jacket, the sou'-wester, the unbraced trousers, striped shirt, and all the rest--and getting on board a pinnace, made their way to Cures. They had on arrival some time to pass before the coming of the eery hour when such work as they had on hand could be performed with the least chance of interruption. The night, as the principal performer described it, was as dark as the narrow house whereof they were to deprive the still inhabitant, so that even with the assistance of the doctor's apprentice, who went along with them, they had the greatest difficulty to discover the limited spot of their operations. But Liston had encountered such difficulties before, and then "what mattered if they should take the wrong one?" for with the exception of the pathological curiosity, as in this case, these children of science had no more scruples of choice. In a trice the game was bagged, as they sometimes described the work, and the boy, getting alarmed, flew off with the necessary injunction of secrecy, which only added to his alarm, as they could plainly perceive by the sounds of his rapid receding steps heard in the stillness of the haunted spot.