Deverel Barrow

In some cases [during the excavations] when night was stealing on, and an urn had been but partially discovered, in order to ensure its preservation, I have bivouacked around the fire with my labourers till near midnight; no pleasant situation on a bleak and elevated Dorset Down in a November night.

Men were employed in dragging furze from an adjoining spot, and it was a fine subject for the talent of an artist to have described the venerable urn, smoking at the flame, while a red and flickering gleam played upon the countenances of the labourers, who stood around the fire, speaking in low and smothered tones, allowing their fears to work upon their imaginations, - their eyes fixed upon the flame and dead men's bone, - were afraid to look into the surrounding darkness.

The swell of the passing breeze as it fanned the fire, raised them from their reverie, or roused their attention from some direful story of goblin damned, which was gravely related and as faithfully believed. The effect produced by the narrative of the village thatcher added most strongly to the horror of their situation, as he gravely declared that his father and his elder brother had been most cruelly dragged about and beaten by some invisible hand, on the very down on which we stood. There was no danger of a deserter from my party, as fear kept them together...