“The trapt rat above never stirred or give tongue.  My God! what a man!  Sich a nature could afford to bide and bide—­ay, for twenty year, if need be.

“Dignum would have enjoyed the sound of a cry; but he never got it.  He listened with the grin fixed on his face; and of a sudden he heard a scrambling struggle, like as a dog with the colic jumping at a wall; and presently, as the sticks blazed and the smoke rose denser, a thick coughin’, as of a consumptive man under bed-clothes.  Still no cry, nor any appeal for mercy; no, not from the time he lit the fire till a horrible rattle come down, which was the last twitches of somethin’ that choked and died on the sooty gratin’ above.

“When all was quiet, Dignum he knocks with his foot on the floor and sits hisself down before the hearth, with a face like a pillow for innocence.

“‘I were chilled and lit it,’ says he to the landlord.  ‘You don’t mind?’

“Mind?  Who would have ventur’d to cross Dark Dignum’s fancies?

“He give a boisterous laugh, and ordered in a double noggin of humming stuff.

“‘Here,’ he says, when it comes, ’is to the health of Exciseman Jones, that swore to bring me to the ground.’

“‘To the ground,’ mutters a thick voice from the chimney.

“‘My God!’ says the landlord—­’there’s something up there!’

“Something there was; and terrible to look upon when they brought it to light.  The creature’s struggles had ground the sut into its face, and its nails were black below the quick.

“Were those words the last of its death-throe, or an echo from beyond?  Ah! we may question; but they were heard by two men.

“Dignum went free.  What could they prove agen him?  Not that he knew there was aught in the chimney when he lit the fire.  The other would scarcely have acquent him of his plans.  And Exciseman Jones was hurried into his grave alongside the church up here.

“And therein he lay for twenty year, despite that, not a twelvemonth after his coming, the sacrilegious house itself sunk roaring into the waters.  For the Lord would have none of it, and, biding His time, struck through a fortnight of deluge, and hurled church and cliff into ruin.  But the yard remained, and, nighest the seaward edge of it, Exciseman Jones slept in his fearful winding sheet and bided his time.

“It came when my grandfather were a young man of thirty, and mighty close and confidential with Dark Dignum.  God forgive him!  Doubtless he were led away by the older smuggler, that had a grace of villainy about him, ’tis said, and used Lord Chesterfield’s printed letters for wadding to his bullets.

“By then he was a ramping, roaring devil; but, for all his bold hands were stained with crime, the memory of Exciseman Jones and of his promise dwelled with him and darkened him ever more and more, and never left him.  So those that knew him said.

“Now all these years the cliff edge agen the graveyard, where it was broke off, was scabbing into the sea below.  But still they used this way of ascent for their ungodly traffic; and over the ruin of the cliff they had drove a new path for to carry up their kegs.