graves beneath them— more quiet, in fact ; for 

 there issued from a grated hole among the tombs 

 the sound of an anvil, deep down and muffled, 

 but unmistakably ringing, as if Governor Win- 

 throp were forging chains in his vault. Then 

 came a rush, a deadened roar, and an emanation 

 of dank gaseous breath, such as the dead alone 

 breathe. 



It was only the passing of a tool-car in the 

 subway underneath the cemetery, and the 

 hammering of a workman at a forge in a niche 

 of the tunnel. But, rising out of the tombs, it 

 was gruesome and unearthly in the night- 

 quiet. 



The sparrows did not mind the sound. Maybe 

 it ascended as a pleasant murmur to them and 

 shaped their dreams, as dream-stuff drifts to 

 their sweet- voiced cousins in the meadows with 

 the lap and lave of the streams. A carriage 

 rolled by. The clank of hoofs disturbed none of 

 them. Some one slammed the door of an apothe- 

 cary-shop adross the street, and hurried off. Not 

 a sparrow stirred. 



I was trying to see whether the birds slept 

 with their heads beneath their wings. Appa- 

 [98] 



