‘Under favour, Sir,’ replied the horror-stricken sexton, ‘I don't think

they can, Sir; they don't know me, Sir; I don't think the gentlemen

have ever seen me, Sir.’

‘Oh, yes, they have,’ replied the goblin; ‘we know the man with the

sulky face and grim scowl, that came down the street to-night,

throwing his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying-

spade the tighter. We know the man who struck the boy in the

envious malice of his heart, because the boy could be merry, and he

could not. We know him, we know him.’

Here, the goblin gave a loud, shrill laugh, which the echoes returned

twentyfold; and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head,

or rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge

of the tombstone, whence he threw a Somerset with extraordinary

agility, right to the sexton's feet, at which he planted himself in the

attitude in which tailors generally sit upon the shop-board.

'‘I - I - am afraid I must leave you, Sir,’ said the sexton, making an

effort to move.

‘Leave us!’ said the goblin, ‘Gabriel Grub going to leave us. Ho! ho!

ho!’

As the goblin laughed, the sexton observed, for one instant, a brilliant

illumination within the windows of the church, as if the whole

building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth a lively

air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the first one,

poured into the churchyard, and began playing at leap-frog with the

tombstones, never stopping for an instant to take breath, but ‘overing’

the highest among them, one after the other, with the most

marvellous dexterity. The first goblin was a most astonishing leaper,

and none of the others could come near him; even in the extremity of

his terror the sexton could not help observing, that while his friends

were content to leap over the common-sized gravestones, the first one

took the family vaults, iron railings and all, with as much ease as if

they had been so many street-posts.

At last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played

quicker and quicker, and the goblins leaped faster and faster, coiling

themselves up, rolling head over heels upon the ground, and

bounding over the tombstones like footballs. The sexton's brain

whirled round with the rapidity of the motion he beheld, and his legs

reeled beneath him, as the spirits flew before his eyes; when the

goblin king, suddenly darting towards him, laid his hand upon his

collar, and sank with him through the earth.

The Pickwick Papers