第161章

"Gabriel started up, and stood rooted to the spot with astonishment and terror; for his eyes rested on a form that made his blood run cold.

"Seated on an upright tombstone, close to him, was a strange unearthly figure, whom Gabriel felt at once, was no being of this world.His long fantastic legs which might have reached the ground, were cocked up, and crossed after a quaint, fantastic fashion; his sinewy arms were bare; and his hands rested on his knees.On his short round body, he wore a close covering, ornamented with small slashes; a short cloak dangled at his back;the collar was cut into curious peaks, which served the goblin in lieu of ruff or neckerchief; and his shoes curled up at his toes into long points.

On his head, he wore a broad-brimmed sugar-loaf hat, garnished with a single feather.The hat was covered with the white frost; and the goblin looked as if he had sat on the same tombstone very comfortably, for two or three hundred years.He was sitting perfectly still; his tongue was put out, as if in derision; and he was grinning at Gabriel Grub with such a grin as only a goblin could call up.

"`It was not the echoes,' said the goblin.

"Gabriel Grub was paralysed, and could make no reply.

"`What do you do here on Christmas eve?' said the goblin sternly.

"`I came to dig a grave, sir,' stammered Gabriel Grub.

"`What man wanders among graves and churchyards on such a night as this?'

cried the goblin.

"`Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!' screamed a wild chorus of voices that seemed to fill the churchyard.Gabriel looked fearfully round--nothing was to be seen.

"`What have you got in that bottle?' said the goblin.

"`Hollands, sir,' replied the sexton, trembling more than ever; for he had bought it of the smugglers, and he thought that perhaps his questioner might be in the excise department of the goblins.

"`Who drinks Hollands alone, and in a churchyard, on such a night as this?' said the goblin.

"`Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!' exclaimed the wild voices again.

"The goblin leered maliciously at the terrified sexton, and then raising his voice, exclaimed:

"`And who, then, is our fair and lawful prize?'

"To this inquiry the invisible chorus replied, in a strain that sounded like the voices of many choristers singing to the mighty swell of the old church organ--a strain that seemed borne to the sexton's ears upon a wild wind, and to die away as it passed onward; but the burden of the reply was still the same, `Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!'

"The goblin grinned a broader grin than before, as he said, `Well, Gabriel, what do you say to this?'

"The sexton gasped for breath.

"`What do you think of this, Gabriel?' said the goblin, kicking up his feet in the air on either side of the tombstone, and looking at the turned-up points with as much complacency as if he had been contemplating the most fashionable pair of Wellingtons in all Bond Street.

"`It's--it's--very curious, sir,' replied the sexton, half dead with fright; `very curious, and very pretty, but I think I'll go back and finish my work, sir, if you please.'

"`Work!' said the goblin, `what work?'

"`The grave, sir; making the grave,' stammered the sexton.

"`Oh, the grave, eh?' said the goblin; `who makes graves at a time when all other men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?'

"Again the mysterious voices replied, `Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!'

"`I'm afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,' said the goblin, thrusting his tongue further into his cheek than ever--and a most astonishing tongue it was--`I'm afraid my friends want you, Gabriel,' said the goblin.

"`Under favour, sir,' replied the horror-stricken sexton, `I don't think they can, sir; they don't know me, sir; I don't think the gentlemen have ever seen me, sir.'

"`Oh yes they have,' replied the goblin; `we know the man with the sulky face and grim scowl, that came down the street to-night, throwing his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying spade the tighter.We know the man who struck the boy in the envious malice of his heart, because the boy could be merry, and he could not.We know him, we know him.'

"Here, the goblin gave a loud shrill laugh, which the echoes returned twenty-fold: and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head, or rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge of the tombstone: whence he threw a somerset with extraordinary agility, right to the sexton's feet, at which he planted himself in the attitude in which tailors generally sit upon the shop-board.

"`I--I--am afraid I must leave you, sir,' said the sexton, making an effort to move.

"`Leave us!' said the goblin, `Gabriel Grub going to leave us.Ho! ho!

ho!'

"As the goblin laughed, the sexton observed, for one instant, a brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth a lively air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the first one, poured into the churchyard, and began playing at leap-frog with the tombstones:

never stopping for an instant to take breath, but `overing' the highest among them, one after the other, with the most marvellous dexterity.The first goblin was a most astonishing leaper, and none of the others could come near him; even in the extremity of his terror the sexton could not help observing, that while his friends were content to leap over the common-sized gravestones, the first one took the family vaults, iron railings and all, with as much ease as if they had been so many street posts.

"At last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played quicker and quicker; and the goblins leaped faster and faster: coiling themselves up, rolling head over heels upon the ground, and bounding over the tombstones like foot-balls.The sexton's brain whirled round with the rapidity of the motion he beheld, and his legs reeled beneath him, as the spirits flew before his eyes: when the goblin king, suddenly darting towards him, laid his hand upon his collar, and sank with him through the earth.