Hamlet: Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings
at grave making.
Horatio: Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
Hamlet: 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the
daintier sense.

Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.

The sleep of Ravenswood was broken by ghastly and agitating visions, and
his waking intervals disturbed by melancholy reflections on the past and
painful anticipations of the future. He was perhaps the only traveller
who ever slept in that miserable kennel without complaining of his
lodgings, or feeling inconvenience from their deficiencies. It is when
"the mind is free the body's delicate." Morning, however, found the
Master an early riser, in hopes that the fresh air of the dawn might
afford the refreshment which night had refused him. He took his way
towards the solitary burial-ground, which lay about half a mile from the
inn.

The thin blue smoke, which already began to curl upward, and to
distinguish the cottage of the living from the habitation of the dead,
apprised him that its inmate had returned and was stirring. Accordingly,
on entering the little churchyard, he saw the old man labouring in a
half-made grave. "My destiny," thought Ravenswood, "seems to lead me to
scenes of fate and of death; but these are childish thoughts, and they
shall not master me. I will not again suffer my imagination to beguile
my senses." The old man rested on his spade as the Master approached
him, as if to receive his commands; and as he did not immediately speak,
the sexton opened the discourse in his own way.