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lid. At the same moment Macfarlane, having hurt his hand
upon a stone, flung it carelessly above his head. The grave,
in which they now stood almost to the shoulders, was close to
the edge of the plateau of the graveyard; and the gig lamp
had been propped, the better to illuminate their labours,
against a tree, and on the immediate verge of the steep bank
descending to the stream. Chance had taken a sure aim with
the stone. Then came a clang of broken glass; night fell
upon them; sounds alternately dull and ringing announced the
bounding of the lantern down the bank, and its occasional
collision with the trees. A stone or two, which it had
dislodged in its descent, rattled behind it into the
profundities of the glen; and then silence, like night,
resumed its sway; and they might bend their hearing to its
utmost pitch, but naught was to be heard except the rain, now
marching to the wind, now steadily falling over miles of open
country.
They were so nearly at an end of their abhorred task that
they judged it wisest to complete it in the dark. The coffin
was exhumed and broken open; the body inserted in the
dripping sack and carried between them to the gig; one
mounted to keep it in its place, and the other, taking the
horse by the mouth, groped along by wall and bush until they
reached the wider road by the Fisher's Tryst. Here was a
faint, diffused radiancy, which they hailed like daylight; by
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