At
times they had a word or two in private, and Macfarlane was from first
to last particularly kind and jovial. But it was plain that he avoided
any reference to their common secret; and even when Fettes whispered to
him that he had cast in his lot with the lions and forsworn the lambs,
he only signed to him smilingly to hold his peace. At length an occasion arose which threw the pair once more into a closer
union. Mr. K---- was again short of subjects; pupils were eager, and it
was a part of this teacher's pretensions to be always well supplied. At
the same time there came the news of a burial in the rustic graveyard of
Glencorse. Time has little changed the place in question. It stood then,
as now, upon a cross road, out of call of human habitations, and buried
fathom deep in the foliage of six cedar trees. The cries of the sheep
upon the neighbouring hills, the streamlets upon either hand, one loudly
singing among pebbles, the other dripping furtively from pond to pond,
the stir of the wind in mountainous old flowering chestnuts, and once in
seven days the voice of the bell and the old tunes of the precentor,
were the only sounds that disturbed the silence around the rural church. The Resurrection Man--to use a by-name of the period--was not to be
deterred by any of the sanctities of customary piety. It was part of his
trade to despise and desecrate the scrolls and trumpets of old tombs,
the paths worn by the feet of worshippers and mourners, and the
offerings and the inscriptions of bereaved affection. To rustic
neighbourhoods, where love is more than commonly tenacious, and where
some bonds of blood or fellowship unite the entire society of a parish,
the body-snatcher, far from being repelled by natural respect, was
attracted by the ease and safety of the task. To bodies that had been
laid in earth, in joyful expectation of a far different awakening, there
came that hasty, lamp-lit, terror-haunted resurrection of the spade and
mattock. The coffin was forced, the cerements torn, and the melancholy
relics, clad in sackcloth, after being rattled for hours on moonless
byways, were at length exposed to uttermost indignities before a class
of gaping boys. Somewhat as two vultures may swoop upon a dying lamb, Fettes and
Macfarlane were to be let loose upon a grave in that green and quiet
resting-place. The wife of a farmer, a woman who had lived for sixty
years, and been known for nothing but good butter and a godly
conversation, was to be rooted from her grave at midnight and carried,
dead and naked, to that far-away city that she had always honoured with
her Sunday's best; the place beside her family was to be empty till the
crack of doom; her innocent and almost venerable members to be exposed
to that last curiosity of the anatomist. Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well wrapped in cloaks and
furnished with a formidable bottle. It rained without remission--a cold,
dense, lashing rain. Now and again there blew a puff of wind, but these
sheets of falling water kept it down. Bottle and all, it was a sad and
silent drive as far as Penicuik, where they were to spend the evening. They stopped once, to hide their implements in a thick bush not far from
the churchyard, and once again at the Fisher's Tryst, to have a toast
before the kitchen fire and vary their nips of whisky with a glass of
ale. When they reached their journey's end the gig was housed, the horse
was fed and comforted, and the two young doctors in a private room sat
down to the best dinner and the best wine the house afforded. The
lights, the fire, the beating rain upon the window, the cold,
incongruous work that lay before them, added zest to their enjoyment of
the meal. With every glass their cordiality increased. Soon Macfarlane
handed a little pile of gold to his companion. "A compliment," he said. "Between friends these little d----d
accommodations ought to fly like pipe-lights." Fettes pocketed the money, and applauded the sentiment to the echo. "You
are a philosopher," he cried. "I was an ass till I knew you. You and
K---- between you, by the Lord Harry! but you'll make a man of me." "Of course we shall," applauded Macfarlane. "A man? I tell you, it
required a man to back me up the other morning. There are some big,
brawling, forty-year-old cowards who would have turned sick at the look
of the d----d thing; but not you--you kept your head. I watched you." "Well, and why not?" Fettes thus vaunted himself. "It was no affair of
mine. There was nothing to gain on the one side but disturbance, and on
the other I could count on your gratitude, don't you see?" And he
slapped his pocket till the gold pieces rang. Macfarlane somehow felt a certain touch of alarm at these unpleasant
words. He may have regretted that he had taught his young companion so
successfully, but he had no time to interfere, for the other noisily
continued in this boastful strain:--

"The great thing is not to be afraid. Now, between you and me, I don't
want to hang--that's practical; but for all cant, Macfarlane, I was born
with a contempt. Hell, God, Devil, right, wrong, sin, crime, and all the
old gallery of curiosities--they may frighten boys, but men of the
world, like you and me, despise them. Here's to the memory of Gray!" It was by this time growing somewhat late. The gig, according to order,
was brought round to the door with both lamps brightly shining, and the
young men had to pay their bill and take the road. They announced that
they were bound for Peebles, and drove in that direction till they were
clear of the last houses of the town; then, extinguishing the lamps,
returned upon their course, and followed a by-road toward Glencorse. There was no sound but that of their own passage, and the incessant,
strident pouring of the rain. It was pitch dark; here and there a white
gate or a white stone in the wall guided them for a short space across
the night; but for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost
groping, that they picked their way through that resonant blackness to
their solemn and isolated destination. In the sunken woods that traverse
the neighbourhood of the burying-ground the last glimmer failed them,
and it became necessary to kindle a match and re-illumine one of the
lanterns of the gig. Thus, under the dripping trees, and environed by
huge and moving shadows, they reached the scene of their unhallowed
labours. They were both experienced in such affairs, and powerful with the spade;
and they had scarce been twenty minutes at their task before they were
rewarded by a dull rattle on the coffin 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.