I moved a little aside, with a sort of thrill, to give him freer access to my uncle, in the hope that he might, perhaps, throw a light upon the history of this remarkable memorial. The old fellow had a rat-like gray eye--the other was hid under a black patch--and there was a deep red scar across his forehead, slanting from the patch that covered the extinguished orb. His face was purplish, the tinge deepening towards the lumpish top of his nose, on the side of which stood a big wart, and he carried a great walking-cane over his shoulder, and bore, as it seemed to me, an intimidating, but caricatured resemblance to an old portrait of Oliver Cromwell in my Whig grandfather's parlour. 'You don't think it a bullet wound, Sir?' said my uncle, mildly, and touching his hat--for coming of a military stock himself, he always treated an old soldier with uncommon respect. 'Why, please your raverence,' replied the man, reciprocating his courtesy; 'I _know_ it's not.' 'And what _is_ it, then, my good man?' interrogated the sexton, as one in authority, and standing on his own dunghill. 'The trepan,' said the fogey, in the tone in which he'd have cried 'attention' to a raw recruit, without turning his head, and with a scornful momentary skew-glance from his gray eye. 'And do you know whose skull that was, Sir?' asked the curate. 'Ay do I, Sir, _well_,' with the same queer smile, he answered. 'Come, now, you're a grave-digger, my fine fellow,' he continued, accosting the sexton cynically; 'how long do you suppose that skull's been under ground?' 'Long enough; but not so long, _my_ fine fellow, as yours has been above ground.' 'Well, you're right there, for _I_ seen him buried,' and he took the skull from the sexton's hands; 'and I'll tell you more, there was some dry eyes, too, at his funeral--ha, ha, ha!' 'You were a resident in the town, then?' said my uncle, who did not like the turn his recollections were taking. 'Ay, Sir, that I was,' he replied; 'see that broken tooth, there--I forgot 'twas there--and the minute I seen it, I remembered it like this morning--I could swear to it--when he laughed; ay, and that sharp corner to it--hang him,' and he twirled the loose tooth, the last but two of all its fellows, from' its socket, and chucked it into the grave. 'And were you--you weren't in the army, _then_?' enquired the curate, who could not understand the sort of scoffing dislike he seemed to bear it. 'Be my faith I was _so_, Sir--the Royal Irish Artillery,' replied he, promptly. 'And in what capacity?' pursued his reverence. 'Drummer,' answered the mulberry-faced veteran. 'Ho!--Drummer? That's a good time ago, I dare say,' said my uncle, looking on him reflectively. 'Well, so it is, not far off fifty years,' answered he. 'He was a hard-headed codger, he was; but you see the sprig of shillelagh was too hard for him--ha, ha, ha!' and he gave the skull a smart knock with his walking-cane, as he grinned at it and wagged his head.