326 RECOLLECTIONS OF A FREE TRADER. 



ing from my seat, I hurried to the further end of the vault, and sat 

 myself down for awhile, endeavouring to collect my wandering 

 thoughts. The more I reflected, the more bewildered I became; and 

 my mind recalled, with a frightful accuracy, all the supernatural 

 tales of death, wherewith, in infancy, my ear had been assailed. In 

 this bed of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep, surrounded with 

 yellow chapless sculls and dead men's rattling bones, did I remain, 

 until my mind gradually gave way, beneath the excitement., and rea- 

 son no longer retained her controul. Imagination peopled the vault,, 

 with a ghastly and numerous tenantry, with whom I held discourse, 

 believing myself one of them, and as escentially departed from the 

 living world as they were; but ever and anon, the low desponding 

 echoes of my own sepulchral voice startled me into momentary sensi- 

 bility: it was, however, but momentary, for I soon again sunk back 

 into my former state of wild delirium. Then, starting into motion, 

 and believing that I had been unfairly deprived of my resting place, 

 I scooped out, with my bony hands, the consents of the coffin, on 

 which I had, at first, seated myself, and deposited my exhausted 

 frame therein ; and there I lay, for a while, at rest, being surrounded 

 with all the mute appalling emblems of decay. 



Shut up in that charnel house and almost stiffled, I laboured for 

 breath, well do I remember to have grasped the remains of more 

 than one human being, bending over the senseless clay, and won- 

 dering why I could not partake of their stillness and insensibility. 

 At length, exhausted reason completely relinquished her hold her 

 farewell beam past away, and I sunk down in convulsive agony 

 between two newly deposited coffins, nor did one single gleam of 

 sense revisit me during this living death, to which I could not 

 have been exposed for less than si x-and- thirty or forty hours. The 

 next circumstance of which I have any recollection, was being 

 awakened by gentle whispers, and opening my eyes, I discovered 

 anxiously bending over me, the face of one of my companions, who 

 with my father appeared to exhibit some anxiety for my condition 

 no words of recognition passed between us ; but believing myself 

 still in the vaults, I spoke incoherently and wildly. It was many 

 weeks before health of body and of mind returned, or before I learnt 

 the particulars of my own story. It had been supposed for some 

 time, that I had escaped, during the general uproar on the Sunday ; 

 but not making my appearance, my companions became alarmed, 

 and on Tuesday morning early they effected their entry to the 

 chapel, again unsealed the mouth of the tomb, wherein I lay 

 stiffened and senseless, and by great labour and contrivance had me 

 conveyed to a secure resting place, where after a lengthed interval, 

 and by constant attention and kindness, I became at last convales- 

 cent. For awhile, the impressions left on my mind by this inci- 

 dent, absolutely prevented me from taking any prominent part in 

 the business. I became fearful and heartless, ashamed of myself, 

 and the derision of my companions, who expressed their regret at 

 having rescued me from the grave, wherein they urged, "l had 

 better have remained, as I was then worse than useless to them, bur- 

 densome rather than serviceable. 



