beast," refers to the two establishments; but whatever may be the meaning of this association, it is perfectly certain that the Crumpet and Crown was within twenty yards of the church—that the party assembled at the Crumpet and Crown had to go through that very churchyard—and that although the house was usually closed at ten, the argument in which they were engaged was not finished at eleven. They had still one little point to settle; a point, which they felt it to be their duty to settle before they parted, it being neither more nor less than "How the country could be saved from a sanguinary revolution?" Mr. Blinkum contended that unless a law were passed to protect the British butcher, an universal slaughter would be inevitable. Mr. Bobber thought that a poll-tax might avert it. Mr. Pokey begged to say, and to have it understood, that it could he averted only by an equitable adjustment; and while Mr. Snorkins declared it to be his unbought opinion, that it was to be done by an alteration in the iron trade alone, Mr. Quocks maintained that it could be done only by an immediate and unconditional repeal of the corn-laws. Eventually, however, Mr. Obadiah Drant recapituated the various arguments adduced, and having summed up with all his characteristic perspicuity, delivered his judgment to the effect that—Nothing could save this mighty nation from one chaotic mass of unextinguishable flames!
The point in question having thus been decided to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, the party broke up; and all, with the exception of Obadiah, who would have a glass at the bar, left the house, and proceeded homewards through the churchyard.
The churchyard! To the contemplative, how awful is a churchyard at midnight, when a solemn stillness pervades the scene over which, for a time, Death reigns triumphant! Who, without inspiring feelings of awe, can, at such a time reflect, that beneath the surface of that solemn scene, hearts that have throbbed with love, sympathy, and joy, and those from which sprang only baseness and crime, together perish?—that the marrowless bones of the noble and the base, the virtuous and the vicious, the intellectual and the animal, the lofty and the lowly, the generous and the selfish, the philanthropist and the misanthrope, lie levelled: some fleshless, some crumbled into dust, some crumbling fast, and some cased in corruption still; but all levelled, or distinguished only by the vanity of the living; while Death, upon the loftiest tomb, sits grinning at the distinction, conscious that they are all levelled, and that thus they will remain till the last trump shall sound, when his power will cease for ever?
Perhaps no one. But to those who had just left the Crumpet and Crown this scene was not awful at all. These reflections then did not occur to them—they didn't reflect upon anything of the sort. They wore all elated, thoughtless, careless, fearless: that is, they feared nothing, seeing nothing to fear: they were joyous, merry, happy, generous, friendly, and affectionate. But when they had got half way across the churchyard, Pokey, who was somewhat in advance of the rest, started back, with a look of horror, and with frightful effect exclaimed, "What's that?"
