Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

" Glad T'v& got free from that old fellow's coffin at last," was
its exclamation, as i! divw its List foot out of the grave ; "positively
I think my logs are growing more bent every year with
UHt.i mighed.
The figure before him was that of a young man, somewhat
faded, however, evidently from dissipation. He was dressed
in a very antique style, such as Andrew had never seen, save
for breath ; his eyes dilated, and his old knees knocking against
each other, as if the concentrated violence of a twenty years'
palsy had come upon him. At length, however, his extraordinary
visitor perceived his agitation, and-at once tried to calm it.
"Don't be afraid, Andrew," he said, "I'm very harmless;
always was to everybody but myself else, perhaps, I might
have carried more wrinkles to the grave than you can see in my
face now," and he stroked down his cheeks with apparent com-
placency ; though, all the while, Andrew could not help remarking
a certain air of anxiety in his countenance, quite at
variance with his lively tone of voice and free and easy manner.
"To tell you the truth, Andrew," he went on, "I laid my
lungs to rest a little earlier than quite suited my own inclina-
tions, and having heard you wishing to lie by, the fancy to
breathe a little more of this air, that you are opening your
mouth so wide to catch, came upon me, and the thought, too,
that perhaps you wouldn't be unwilling to change places with
me. Eh! what say you to it, my old boy ? "
" Heard me wishing to he by! " at length stammered forth
Andrew. "Why, I never "
spoke at all!
"No, not with your lips," was the reply. "But, as you laid
your head on my grave, the thought that passed through it,
seemed to echo very clearly even through the lend and fat of
THE VISION OF. OLD ANDREW THE WEAVER. 8
-Id alderman. Now, you would like, wouldn't you, to get
rid of rheumatism and the workhouse, and to sleep
beneath tho green sod, with the lime trees whispering sweetly
overhead ? Only look now. this is the very spot to suit your
fancy. Is it a bargain ?
its weight. 11:i! how do you do Andrew, my old boy? hope
Your rheumatism in no worse for sleeping on the grass! Do
pray now, just knock the dust off my coat behind. It isn't
much the worse for wear, is it? It only comes out once a year,
you know, so it ought to last."
Andrew stared in bewildered terror, unable to move a joint
or utter a word nay, hardly to breathe, and well "But," again faltered Andrew, "do you corpses there below
always hear the thoughts of those who sit npon your graves?
and are you allowed to come up and speak
might he be
to them at your
will ?"
"Why no! not always, at least," replied the other. "But
one night in the year a little liberty is permitted us to stretch
our legs on the turf, and get rid for awhile of the rather uneasy
position in which some of us are lying. ! Ugh I think I feel
the corner of that big fellow's coffin pressing into my chest even
now. Have you never heard, Andrew, the sexton say, how he
has sometimes found corpses turned round in their coffins? Poor
man, he was terrified to think they must have been buried
in some very old pictures that were in the manor house, before
it was pulled down. His coat was somewhat of a claret color,
reaching to the knees, and, if the phrase be allowed, full bottomed,
and garnished moreover with lace and embroidery ; his
waistcoat was richer still, with long lappets half covering his
thighs and his nether ;
garments were of a bright colored silk,
adorned at the knees with ribbons and silver buckles, the latter
rather tarnished. There were buckles too, very large ones, on
his shoes, which were extremely pointed at the toes. And on
his head he wore a three-cornered pinched up hat, with a shining
jewel and a long jaunty feather stuck on one side of it.
There he stood surveying himself as best he could from head
to foot ; brushing off every particle of dust he could detect on
his habiliments, arranging his frills and ruffles, and, above all,
examining the symmetry of his tegs eyeing them in every
direction now front, now back, even stroking them down
gently with his hands, as if to feel if there were any excrescence.
"What a thing it is," he said, when he had completed his
eurvey, " to be buried under a fat alderman I Why didn't he
leave his body, as he did his money, in London ? What with
his corporation and his lead coffin, he has fairly pushed out a
hunch in my back-bone "
; and he threw back his elbows, as if
to reduce the fancied excrescence ; "and, what is even worse,
he has given me a pair of bandy legs. Do you think I've
straightened them enough, Andrew ? "
But as if doubtful on the matter, he proceeded to insert,
first one, and then the other, between two grave-stones that
were very near neighbors to each other, and essayed to improve
their alive. Nothing
symmetry, much as you may have seen a lad try
to straighten a crooked stick.
Poor Andrew ! he stood stock still in unmitigated terror,
nnable to move or speak his mouth wide open, yet gasping
of the sort, I assure you. They had only
shifted their position when they went into their graves again,
after their yearly night of freedom. I have tried every possible
position myself, under the gouty alderman, but have at
length returned to my first one, though it does so grievously
incommode my back-bone and my shins. I hope the hunch is
not very visible. Is it?"
Andrew, by degrees, had been recovering his courage, and
now the lively voice of his extraordinary visitor seemed to
awaken in his breast somewhat of the shrewdness that had
characterized him when younger.
"If you are as uncomfortable as you describe," said he, " I
tliinlc
yours would hardly be the bed I should choose to lie in.
One 'ud think there were many resting-places here bettor worth
having than yours."
"As for that, I don't think you'd find much difference in
reality," replied the ghostly fop, with a strange grimace, half
disappointment, half waggishness; "for you know, except on
this one night in the year, we don't feel much of the incornmodiousness
of our lodgings. It is only when we get on the top
of our graves, and find our joints all so put out of shape, that
we wish to shift our quarters. But that would be no great
annoyance to you; for the old alderman could hardly set your
legs awry, or bend your back more than rheumatism au'l old
"
age have done already.
"But why," aaked Andrew, "are you so solicitous to appear
elegant on this one night ? There's no one here, is there, to see
and admire you?"
"Oh!" said the visitor, hesitating, as if to find out some
evasion of the question, "I told you I was in hopes that you
would change places with me, and, of course, I should like to
make an impression on my re-appearance in the world.
"I faith, and you would make an impression," said Andrew,
venturing even to laugh, "if you were to go down into the
village yonder in your present dress. But that ain't it," he
pursued, taking a malicious pleasure in pressing a topic which,
he clearly saw the other wished to avoid.
" You have gome
other reason for wishing to be so spruce. You expected to meet
other company to-cight, very different from old Andrew, the
weaver."
The poor fellow looked puzzled, and unwilling to reply. The
anxious expression of his face grew more marked but at
length, with a shrug of his shoulders, as much as to say,
"Well, I can't help it," he went on.
" True, Andrew, you have guessed right. I do expect to
meet some other company. The church-yard is full of them
already. Every grave has by this time sent forth its inmate,
and they are engaged on every side of us, in the sports and
pursuits that suit them best. I do intend to pay my respects
to some of them before renewing my acquaintance with the
alderman's coffin, if you won't do that for me."
It was Andrew's turn to look awkward now, for his fears began
again to get the better of him. It was not at all comfortable to
think that he was alone, at midnight, surrounded by whole
generations of dancing corpses.
" Don't be alarmed at what I tell you," said his companion
ving his trouble. "It inrt often we catch a really live
body amongst us, at this our revel, and if we do, he is seldom
wide awake like you. Sometimes, indeed, a drunken pig of a