The soil was damp; and a nauseous odour, emanating from it, impregnated the air. When the sun lay for several days upon the place, even in the depth of winter—and invariably throughout the summer—the stench was so intolerable that not a dwelling in the neighbourhood was seen with a window open. Nevertheless, that sickly, fetid odour penetrated into every house, and every room, and every inhabited nook or corner, in that vicinity; and the clothes of the poor inmates smelt, and their food tasted, of the damp grave!
The cemetery was crowded with the remains of mortality. The proprietors of the ground had only one aim in view—namely, to crowd the greatest possible quantity of corpses into the smallest space. But even this economy of room did not prevent the place from being so filled with the dead, that in a given quantity of the soil it was difficult to say whether earth or decayed human remains predominated. Still the cemetery was kept open for interments; and when there was no room for a new-comer, some recently-buried tenant of a grave was exhumed to afford the required space.
In one part of the ground was a rude brick-building, denominated a Bone-House. This hovel was provided with a large fire-place; and seldom did a day pass without smoke being seen to issue from the chimney. On those occasions—when the furnace was lighted—the stench from the cemetery was always more powerful than at other times.
Some of the poor inhabitants of the adjoining houses had remonstrated with the parochial authorities on the subject of this nuisance being tolerated; but the only reply the applicants could obtain was, "Well, prefer an indictment at the sessions, if you don't like it!"
The idea of men in the receipt of eight or ten shillings a week preferring an indictment! Such a process is only accessible to those possessed of ample means; for the legislature has purposely rendered law—that is, the power of obtaining justice, enforcing rights, or suppressing nuisances—a luxury attainable only by money. The poor, indeed! who ever thought of legislating for the poor? Legislate against them, and it is all well and good: heap statute upon statute—pile act upon act—accumulate measure upon measure—encumber the most simple forms with the most intricate technicalities—diversify readings and expand in verbiage until the sense becomes unintelligible—convert the whole legal scheme into a cunning web, so that the poor man cannot walk three steps without entangling his foot in one of those meshes of whose very existence he was previously unaware, and whose nature he cannot comprehend even when involved therein;—do all this, and you are a wise and sound statesman; for this is legislating against the poor—and who, we repeat, would ever think of legislating for them?
But to continue.
The grave-digger entered the cemetery, and cast a glance around him.
That glance well expressed the man's thoughts; for he mentally asked himself, "Whose grave must I disturb now to make room for the new one?"
At length he advanced towards a particular spot, considered it for a moment, and then struck his spade into the soil, as much as to say, "This will do."
The place where he had now halted was only a few yards from the Bone-House. Taking a key from his pocket, he proceeded to unlock the door of that building.
Entering the Bone-House he took from amongst a quantity of implements in one corner, a long flexible iron rod similar to those which we have already described as being used by the body-snatchers.
Returning to the grave, he thrust the rod into the ground. It met with a little resistance from some substance a little harder than the soil; but the man pushed it downwards with a strong arm; and it sank at least twelve feet into the ground.
Satisfied with this essay of the nature of the spot, the grave-digger drew back the rod; and from the deep but narrow aperture thus formed, issued a stench more pestiferous than that which ever came from the lowest knacker's yard.
The man retreated rapidly to the Bone-House; that odour was too powerful even for one who had passed the greater portion of his life in that very grave-yard.
He now proceeded to light a fire in the Bone-House; and when he saw the huge logs which he heaped on the grate, blazing brightly, he covered them with coke. The current of air from the open door fanned the flames, which roared up the chimney; and the grave-digger felt invigorated and cheered by the genial warmth that issued from the ample grate.
After lingering for a few minutes in the Bone-House, the grave-digger returned to the spot which he had previously marked for excavation.
Baring his brawny arms to the very shoulders, he now set himself vigorously to work to dig the grave which was to receive a new-comer that afternoon.
Throwing the earth up on either side, he had digged to a depth of about two feet, when his spade encountered a coffin. He immediately took his pickaxe, broke the coffin to pieces, and then separated with his shovel the pieces of wood and the human bones from the damp earth. The coffin was already so soft with decay that the iron rod had penetrated through it without much difficulty; and it therefore required but little exertion to break it up altogether.
But the odour which came from the grave was now of the most nauseating kind—fetid, sickly, pestiferous—making the atmosphere heavy, and the human breath thick and clammy, as it were—and causing even that experienced grave-digger to retch as if he were about to vomit.
Leaping from the grave, he began to busy himself in conveying the pieces of the broken coffin and the putrid remains of mortality into the Bone-House, where he heaped them pell-mell upon the fire.
The flesh had not completely decayed all away from the bones; a thick, black, fatty-looking substance still covered those human relics; and the fire was thus fed with a material which made the flames roar and play half up the chimney.
And from the summit of that chimney came a smoke—thick, dense, and dark, like the smoke of a gasometer or a manufactory, but bearing on its sable wing the odour of a pestilence.
The man returned to the grave, and was about to resume his labour, when his eyes caught sight of a black object, almost embedded in the damp clay heaped up by the side. He turned it over with his spade: it was the upper part of the skull, with the long, dark hair of a woman still remaining attached to it. The grave-digger coolly took up the relic by that long hair which perhaps had once been a valued ornament; and, carrying it in this manner into the Bone-House, threw it upon the fire. The hair hissed for a moment as it burnt, for it was damp and clogged with clay; then the voracious flames licked up the thin coat of blackened flesh which had still remained on the skull; and lastly devoured the bone itself.
The grave-digger returned to his toils; and at a depth of scarcely one foot below the coffin thus exhumed and burnt, his shovel was again impeded for a moment—and by another coffin!
Once more was the pickaxe put into requisition: a second coffin was broken up; another decomposing, but not entirely decomposed, corpse was hacked, and hewed, and rent to pieces by the merciless implement which was wielded by a merciless arm;—and in a few moments, the fire in the Bone-House burnt cheerfully once more, the mouth of the chimney vomiting forth its dense and pest-bearing breath, the volume of which was from time to time lighted with sparks and flakes of fire.
Thus was it that this grave-digger disposed of the old tenants of the cemetery in order to make room for new ones.
And then fond, surviving relations and friends speak of the last home and the quiet resting-place of the deceased: they talk with affectionate reverence of those who sleep in the grave, and they grow pathetic in their eulogies of the tranquil slumber of the tomb!
Poor deluded creatures! While they are thus engaged in innocent discourse—a discourse that affords them solace when they ponder upon the loss which they have sustained—the last home is invaded—the quiet resting-place is rudely awakened with sacrilegious echoes—the sleep of the grave is disturbed by the thunder of a pickaxe—and the corpse is snatched from the tranquil slumber of the tomb to be cast into the all-devouring furnace of the Bone-House.
The grave-digger proceeded