probing, we throw aside spade and mattock,
and with a small trowel carefully remove the
soil: beginning with the feet of the skeleton,
and working upward. The soil so removed is
most carefully examined, and even sometimes
sifted; for minute beads and other small articles
are occasionally found at the head and centre
of the grave. At the feet, an earthen vase is
occasionally placed; sometimes, though very
rarely, a vessel of glass. By the waist, if the
grave be that of a female, we find at times a
brooch, a bronze buckle, or a girdle ornament;
often a bunch of common keys, oftener a knife.
The knife may have traces about it of its wooden
case or sheath; the 'keys' were probably the
distinguishing mark of a woman with a household,
as the spear-head was of every adult male
amongst these old Englishmen. The spindle
whorl in the midland and some of the southern
counties amongst the Anglo and West Saxons
takes the place of the keys, or is the distinguishing
mark in female graves. We find by the
neck, necklaces of beads, clay, porcelain, glass,
amber, and sometimes of amethystine quartz."

"Well, but these are not much of prizes,
master!"

"The great prizes of those graves, such as
not one perhaps in a hundred yields, even among
rich Jutish tribes, is the splendid fibula, such as
that of Kingston, or of Sarr, the gilded braid
around the skull, inwoven with amber beads,
perhaps, the 'bulla' or the golden medals similar
to those found at Sarr also. In a few instances,
and then almost confined to East Kent, have
been found those peculiar glasses, knobbed on
the outside, as if adorned with falling tear drops.
They were fashioned, as I believe, specially for
sepulchral purposes. In the grave of the
warrior we ordinarily find the spearhead, by
the right side or ear; its iron ferrule by the
right foot; the umbo or central boss of the
shield, on or near the breast. More rarely,
an ornamented buckle, bronze gilded, by the
waist, and near it the great two-edged Northman's
sword. This instrument, about three
feet long, blade and heft, and sometimes two
and a half inches wide, lies generally by the
left side."

"Blest if the old gent doesn't think he's at a
mechanics' institution," I heard the postman
grunt, as he sat up and shook himself. I made
allowance for the irritability that commonly
attends the act of rousing out of sleep.

"Many graves," I went on, in a conciliatory
tone, "scarcely yield me a relic; a rusty knife
only, perhaps; or a solitary bead of clay. I
have been speaking, gentlemen, of the richest
and most valuable interments—those, perhaps,
of the ladies of the Sept or tribe, the chieftains
and captains of the Hundred, or other
distinguished men. Among the anomalies found
in these Jutish or Anglo-Saxon graves, I may
notice bronze tweezers, iron or bronze shears,
horsebits, whetstones, pursemounts, axes, studs
of bronze, tags for straps, spindle whorls,
foreign shells, such as the Cyprea, common
cowries, bits of Roman, glass, fragments of
the red glazed pottery or Samian ware; Roman
coins, pierced for suspension and stored as
curiosities, sometimes appear. Various small
articles also occur occasionally: bronze bodkins
or needles, scissors, pins of ivory or of metal,
earrings, little silverwire finger-rings—all forming,
doubtless, the trosseaux of a female grave.

"I have some of these relics before me," I
said. "This little object, scarcely in diameter
exceeding half an inch, is a saucer-shaped tibula,
a rare type for a Kentish grave, but common
enough in the Saxon cemeteries of Wiltshire and
some midland counties. It bears the rude
effigy of a face in the centre, and the flat border
surrounding the face has been gilded; here
also, I have a small bronze key, with a hollow
stem and wards. Hitherto, the key has been
pronounced to be of Roman handicraft, when
found in the tumuli of Kent. But I have
reason to doubt the accuracy of such a classification,
which assumes them to be plunder, or
waifs from Roman villas or possessions. The
key in question was found close to the remains
of a wooden box; indeed some of the very wood
was adhering to its wards."

"But this dark-coloured 'urn' as you call
it," said the blacksmith, twinkling all over with
evident amusement at what I had been telling
him, and handling the urn to my consternation
somewhat as he would a cold horseshoe. "You
found it in the grave, I believe? Did the
Romans always carry pots off with them when
they died?"

"Generally, sir, their graves contain pottery,
if that is what you mean. Generally; that
is, when they practised cremation or burning
their dead; and in various descriptions of
vessels the mortuary ashes have been found
enclosed, such as the common 'Upchurch' urns
of black ware, in the large amphora used as
wine vessels, or in glass vessels, carefully
protected, and sometimes enclosed even in the
amphora, and in oil vats, but why these Anglo-
Saxons, Jutes, or 'old Englishmen,' who
practised inhumation, that is, buried their dead,
should have placed earthen vessels in the graves
of their deceased friends, I know not, unless
from some vague idea that the food or nutriment
(if such were placed in them) might be
useful to the wants of the deceased hereafter.
Sometimes, the pottery consisted of long-necked
bottle-shaped vessels, like the little urn on the
table. I found it this day, beyond the head of
a skeleton; an iron spear-head lying close to it,
in fact touching it; a little cist or hollow having
been carefully cut in the chalk. As I removed
the loose pieces with my hand, the side of the
urn came into view; two pieces of chalk
supported a slab placed horizontally above it; the
urn itself was filled to the brim with water
which shimmered in it crystal bright."

"What? Buried twelve hundred years; with
the water preserved in it? Never!"

"I did not say so," I replied, "the original
contents, whatever they were—beer, mead, or
nectar—had long since vanished. The pure
water, drop by drop had percolated through