J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu [diy ebook reader txt] 📗

he parish sexton. Bob Martin was held much in awe bytruant boys who sauntered into the churchyard on Sundays, to read thetombstones, or play leap frog over them, or climb the ivy in search ofbats or sparrows' nests, or peep into the mysterious aperture under theeastern window, which opened a dim perspective of descending stepslosing themselves among profounder darkness, where lidless coffins gapedhorribly among tattered velvet, bones, and dust, which time andmortality had strewn there. Of such horribly curious, and otherwiseenterprising juveniles, Bob was, of course, the special scourge andterror. But terrible as was the official aspect of the sexton, andrepugnant as his lank form, clothed in rusty, sable vesture, his small,frosty visage, suspicious grey eyes, and rusty, brown scratch-wig, mightappear to all notions of genial frailty; it was yet true, that BobMartin's severe morality sometimes nodded, and that Bacchus did notalways solicit him in vain.

Bob had a curious mind, a memory well st