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matter was, in itself, an offence against good manners, and a
temptation to the men with whom he dealt. Fettes, for
instance, had often remarked to himself upon the singular
freshness of the bodies. He had been struck again and again
by the hang-dog, abominable looks of the ruffians who came to
him before the dawn; and putting things together clearly in
his private thoughts, he perhaps attributed a meaning too
immoral and too categorical to the unguarded counsels of his
master. He understood his duty, in short, to have three
branches: to take what was brought, to pay the price, and to
avert the eye from any evidence of crime.
One November morning this policy of silence was put sharply
to the test. He had been awake all night with a racking
toothache - pacing his room like a caged beast or throwing
himself in fury on his bed - and had fallen at last into that
profound, uneasy slumber that so often follows on a night of
pain, when he was awakened by the third or fourth angry
repetition of the concerted signal. There was a thin, bright
moonshine; it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town
had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already
preluded the noise and business of the day. The ghouls had
come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually
eager to be gone. Fettes, sick with sleep, lighted them
upstairs. He heard their grumbling Irish voices through a
dream; and as they stripped the sack from their sad
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