130 A MEMENTO MORI. 



the body, and, sure enough, too, the head still wails as if . 

 in suffering, and the body heaves, and the dark wings quiver, 

 as if in indignation. But it is not alone these quivering 

 pinions which impart a motion like their own to Deborah's 

 whitened lip. It it is not even the wail of that dissevered 

 head which causes her heart to beat like a muffled drum, in 

 accompaniment of its plaintive pipe ; . but she sees she sees, 

 plain^as the effigy on Master Thomson's new tombstone 

 right on the creature's back, between its shoulders, another 

 head an eyeless skull magnified, by terror and conscious- 

 ness of cruelty, into size above the human. Poor Deborah 

 beholds no more she has seen and heard too much, and falls, 

 plump as her person, on the kitchen floor. There her mis- 

 tress, after having by reiterated peals broken the parlour bell, 

 was the first to find her. In due time, this veracious tale of 

 wonder was gathered from the domestic's lips; and in the 

 mutilated object of her alarm, was discovered the decapitated 

 corpse of a Death's-head Moth. 



Next, in the power of raising superstitious terror, and, as 

 more common than the last, an agent of creating it more ex- 

 tensively, comes the "Death-watch," that pocket time-piece of 

 the grisly monarch, heard, not seen, whose measured tick 

 tick gives warning of its master's soundless footsteps. What 

 hollow echoes are awakened by this monotonous midnight 

 music ! Screwing down of coffins rattle of earth above them 

 toll of the funeral bell salute the trembling ear; while 



