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THE THREE RAVENS. 



" The ravens he croaked as she sat at her meal, " SOUTHED. 

 " Croak, croak, croak !" ARISTOPHANES. 



IN the midst of one of the most beautiful vales in the west of 

 England stands a small country town, called by popular consent or tra- 

 ditionary custom, Greystone ; a corruption (so it has been surmised 

 by some of the more learned antiquarians of the place) of its original, 

 if not appropriate name of Gravestone. And here I may as well in- 

 form the topographical inquirer that no search, however diligent, will 

 enable him to discern the town in question defined upon any map of 

 England and Wales with which I am acquainted. He must, ac- 

 cordingly, take my word for it that such a town does exist ; and 

 must be constrained also to believe that the characters which I am now 

 about to introduce to his notice, enjoy an actual individuality and ex- 

 istence apart from that tf many-coloured life," which the vrai semblance 

 of fiction is sometimes supposed to confer. 



Not far from the town-hall, contiguous likewise to the market- 

 place, and the corner house of street (this last particular must 



remain a secret), lived, or rather was not yet dead, Mr. Simon Raven, 

 the undertaker. Mr. Raven had at one time superadded to the post- 

 mortem branch the more lively avocations of auctioneer and ap- 

 praiser ; but whether he had met with small encouragement in these 

 minor branches, or to speak figuratively, twigs of profession, or 

 whether (which is more likely) his genius led him to prefer the 

 former to the entire exclusion of the other two, I cannot satisfactorily 

 determine ; certain, however, it is that at the time of which I now 

 treat Mr. Raven was solely, and I may also add soully and bodily, an 

 undertaker. 



What's in a name ? A great deal if it be a good one, and there 

 was something in the name of Raven thus happily, by descent or 

 otherwise, appertaining to the individual in question ; it was in all 

 respects appropriate. In the first place he was as black as a raven, 

 clothed perpetually in sable. In the next place he was like a raven, 

 constantly hovering over the dead with professional impatience ; and 

 lastly, he might be said to be a raven, since he was ever on the 

 croak, doling out the most lugubrious tidings. 



Raven belonged to a benefit society, more with an eye to his own 

 benefit, by the way, than with any philanthropic glimpses towards 

 the benefit of the society. It was at the monthly meetings of the 

 club that his peculiar temperament or idiosyncracy was most remark- 

 ably set forth. Here he would show how the country was ruined, con- 

 trasting it with its prosperity of ten years ago, at which period (but 

 this he had forgotten) he had also lamented its downfal. Here he 

 would tell of the failure of crops, of the dearness of prices, of the 

 epidemic that had taken off so many, of the many taxes that were 

 never taken off. He would also foretel speedy death to the sick 



