The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Every night in the year four of us sat in the small parlor of the George of Debenham, the undertaker and the Landlord, and Fetti's himself.

Sometimes there would be more but blow high, blow, low comrain or snow a frost.

We four would each be planted in his own particular arm chair.

Fettis was an old, drunken scotchman, a man of education, obviously, and a man of some property since he lived in idleness.

He had come to Debenham years ago whilst still young, and by a mere continuance of living, had grown to be an adopted townsman.

His blue camlet cloak was local antiquity, like the church spire, his place in the parlor at the George, his absence from church, his own crappiness, disreputable vices were all things, of course in Debenham.

He had some vague, radical opinions and some fleeding infidelities, which he would now and again set forth and emphasize with tottering slaps upon the table.

He drank rum five glasses regularly every evening, and for the greater portion of his nightly visit to the George, sat with his glass in his right hand, in a state of melancholy alcoholic saturation.

We called him the Doctor, for he was supposed to have some special knowledge of medicine, and had been known upon a pinch to set a fracture or reduce at dislocation.

But beyond these slight particulars we had no knowledge of his character or antecedents.

What dark winter night it had struck nine some time before the Landlord joined us, there was a sick man in the George.

A great neighboring proprietor suddenly struck down with apoplexy on his way to Parliament, and the great Man, still Greater London Doctor had been telegraphed to his bedside.

It was the first time that such a thing had happened in Debenham, for the railway was but newly open.

We were all proportionally moved by the currents.

He's come, said the Landlord.

After he filled and lighted his pipe.

He said, I who not the doctor himself, replied our host.

What's his name?

Doctor mac farlane said the Landlord Fetty's was far through his third tumbler, stupidly fuddled Now nodding over and staring maze the round him.

But at the last word he seemed to awaken and repeated the name mc farland twice, quietly enough the first time, but with sudden emotion in the second.

Yes, said the landlord.

That's his name, Doctor, Wolf mac farland.

Fitttys became instantly sober, his eyes awoke, his voice became clear, loud and steady, his language forcible in earnest.

We're all startled by the transformation, as if a man had risen from the dead.

I beg your pardon, he said, I am afraid I have not been paying much attention to your tuck.

Who is this Wolf mac fathin?

And then, when he had heard the landlord doubt it cannot be.

It cannot be, he added, And yet I would like well to see him face to face.

But do you know him, doctor, said the undertaker, with a gasp.

Good forbid was the reply.

And yet the name's a strange one.

It were too much to fancy too.

Tell me, Landlord, is he old, well, said the host.

He's not a young man, to be sure, and his heirs white, but he looks younger and you he is older, though years older but put the slap on the table.

It's the room you see in me face, rum and sin.

This man perhaps may have an easy conscience and good digestion conscience.

Hear me speak, you would think I was some good, old decent Christian, would you not?

But no, not o.

I never canted.

Voltaire may of canted if he stuck my shoes.

But the brains with a rattling Philip at his bald head, the brains were clear and active, and I saw and made no deductions.

If you know this, doctor, I ventured to remark, after a somewhat awful pause, I should gather that you do not share the landlord's good opinion.

Fetty's paid no regard to me.

Yes, he said, with sudden decision, I must see him face to face.

There was another pause, and then a door was closed rather sharply on the first floor, and a step was heard upon the stair.

That's the doctor, cried the landlord.

Walk sharp and you can catch him.

It was but two steps from the small parlor to the door of the old George.

The wide oak staircase lighted almost in the street.

There was over a turkey rug and nothing more between the threshold in the last round of the descent.

But this in the space was every evening brilliantly lit up, not only by the light upon the stair and the great signal land below the sign, but by the warm radiance of the bar room window.

The George thus brightly advertised itself to pass his by in the cold street.

Fettyus walked steadily to the spot, and we, who were hanging behind, beheld the two men meet as one of them fras did face to face.

Doctor mac Farland was alert and vigorous, his white hair set off as pale and placid though energetic countenance.

He was richly addressed in the finest of broadcloth and the whitest of linen, with a great gold watch chain, with studs and spectacles of the same precious material.

He wore a broad folded tie, white and speckled with lilac, and he carried on his arm a comfortable driving coat of fur.

There was no doubt but he became his years, breathing as he did, of wealth and consideration.

And it was a surprising contrast to see our parlor sort, bald, dirty, pimpled and robed in his old clamlet cloak, confront him at the bottom of the stairs.

McFarland, he said, somewhat loudly, more like a herald than a friend.

The great doctor pulled up short on the fourth step, as though the familiarity of the address surprised and somewhat shocked his dignity.

Taddy mcfallan repeated, fattys.

The London man almost staggered.

He stared for the swiftest of seconds at the man before him, glanced behind him with a sort of scare, and then in a startled whisper Fetty's he said, you aye, said the other me.

Didn't you think I was dead?

To were not so easily shut all of our acquaintance.

Hush hush, claimed the doctor, hush hush, that this meeting is so unexpected.

I can see that you are unmanned.

I hardly know you, I confess at first, but I am overjoyed, overjoyed to have this opportunity for the present.

It must be, how d'ye do?

And good bye?

And one for my flies waiting, And I must not fail the train.

But you shall let me see.

Yes, you shall give me your address, and you can count on early news of me.

We must do something for you.

Fettis I fear you are out at elbows, but we must see to that for o lang'side as.

Once we sang his suppers money, cried fettis money from you?

The money I have from you?

Is why were I cast at Loraine.

Doctor mac farland had talked himself into some measure of superiority and confidence, but the uncommon energy of his refusal cast him back into his first confusion.

A horrible, ugly look came and went across his most venerable countenance.

My dear fellow, he said, be it as you please.

My last thought is to offend you.

I would intrude no more.

I will leave you my address.

However I do not wish it.

I do not wish to know the roof it shelters, ye interrupted the other.

I heard your name.

I feared it might be you.

I wish to know if after all their war a god.

I know now that there is none bigone.

He stood in the middle of the rug between the stair and doorway, and the great London Physician, in order to escape, would be forced to step to one side.

It was plain that he hesitated before he thought of this humiliation.

White as he was, there was a dangerous glitter in his spectacles, And while he still paused, uncertain, he became aware that the driver of his fly was peering in from the street at this unusual scene, and caught a glimpse at the same time of our little body from the parlor, huddled by the corner of the bar.

The presence of so many witnesses decried him at once to flee.

He crashed together, brushing on the wainscoat, and made a dart like a serpent, striking for the door.

But his tribulation was not yet hire at an end, for even as he was passing, Fettis clutched him by the arm, and these words came in a whisper, and yet painfully distinct.

Have yer seen it again?

The great rich London doctor, cried out with a sharp, throttling cry.

He dashed his questioner across the open space, and with his hands over his head, fled out the door like a detected thief.

Before it occurred to one of us to make a movement, the flyer was already rattling toward the station.

The scene was over, like a dream, but the dream had left proofs and traces of its passage.

The next day, the servant found the fine goad spectacles broken on the thresholder.

And that very night we were standing breathless by the barroom window, and Fetti's at our side, sover pale and resolute in look, God protect us, mister Fenny, said the landlord, coming first into possession of his customary senses.

What the universes all this?

These are strange things you've been saying.

Fetty's turned towards us.

He looked us each in succession, in the face.

See if you've got a old your tongue, said he.

But my MacFarland is not safe to cross.

Those who are dunes already have repented it too late.

And then, without so much as finishing his third glass, far less waiting for the other two, he bade us good bye and went forth under the lamp of the hotel into the black knight.

We three turned to our places in the parlor with the big red fire and four clear candles, and as we recapitulated what had passed, the first chill of our surprise soon changed into glow of curiosity.

We sat late.

It was the latest session I have known in the old George.

Each man, before we parted, had his theory that he was bound to prove, and none of us had any near business in this world than to track out the past of our condemned companion and surprise the secret that he shared with the great London doctor.

It was no great boast, but I believe I had a better hand at worming out the story than either of my fellows at the George.

And perhaps there is now no other man alive who could near it to you.

The following of foul and unnatural events.

In his young days Fetty's stat in medicine in the schools of Edinburgh.

He had a talent of a kind, the talent that picks up swiftly what it hears and readily retails it for his own.

He worked little at home, but he was civil, attentive, and intelligent in the presence of his masters.

They soon picked him out as a lad who listened closely and remembered well.

Nay strange as it seemed to me when I first heard it.

He was in those days well favored and pleased by his exterior.

There was at that period a certain extramuro teacher of anatomy, whom I shall designate by the letter K.

His name was subsequently too well known the man who bore it skulk through the streets of Edinburgh in disguise, while the mob that applauded at the execution of Burke had called loudly for the blood of his employer.

For mister Klee was then at the top of his vogue, and he enjoyed a popularity due partly to his own talent and address, partly to the incapacity of his rival, the university professor.

The students at least swore by his name, and Fetty's believed him, and was believed by others to have laid the foundations and success when he acquired the favor of this meteorically famous man.

Mister k was a baulvivent as well as an accomplished teacher.

He liked a sly allusion no less than a careful preparation in both capacities.

Fetis enjoyed and deserved his notice, and by the second year of his attendance he held the half regular position of second demonstrator or sub assistant in his class.

In this capacity, charge of the theater and lecture room devolved in particular upon his shoulders.

He had to answer for the cleanliness of the premises and the conduct of the other students, and it was a part of his duty to supply, receive, and divide the various subjects.

It was with a view to this last, at that time very delicate affair, that he was lodged by mister Kay in the same wind and at last in the same building with the dissecting rooms.

Here after night of turbulent pleasures, his hands still tottering, his sights feel misty and confused, he would be called out of bed in the black hours before winter dawn by the unclean and desperate interlopers who supplied the table.

He would open the door to these men, since infamous throughout the land.

He would help them with their tragic burden, pay them their sordid price, and remain alone when they were gone with the unfriendly relics of humanity.

From such a scene, he would return to snatch another hour or to have slumber, to repair the abuse of the night, and refresh himself for the labors of the day.

Few lads could have been more insensible to the impressions of the life.

Thus passed among the ensigns of mortality.

His mind was closed against all general considerations.

He was incapable of interest to the fate and fortunes of another, the slaves of his own desires and low ambitions, polite and selfish.

In the last resort, he had that modicum of prudence, miscalculated morality which keeps a man from inconvenient drunkenness or punishable theft.

He covered besides a measure of consideration from his masters and his fellow pupils, and he had no desire to fail conspicuously in the external parts of life.

Thus he made it his pleasure to gain some distinction in his studies, and day after day rendered unimpeachable eye service to his employer, mister Kay.

For his day of work, he indemnified himself by knights by roaring black guardedly enjoyment.

And when that balance had instruck, the organ that he called his conscience declared it self content.

The supply of subjects was a continual trouble to him as well as to his master.

In that large and busy class.

The raw materials of the anatomus kept perpetually running out, and the business thus rendered necessary was not only unpleasant in itself, but threatened dangerous consequences to all who were concerned.

It was the policy of mister Kay to ask me no questions in his dealings with the trade.

They bring a body and repaid the price, he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration quid pro quo and again, and so what PERFERI asked no questions, he would tell his students, for conscience sake, there was no understanding that the subjects were provided by the crime of murder.

Had the idea been broached to him in words, he would have recoiled in horror.

But the likeness of speech upon so grave a matter was in itself an offense against good manners, and a temptation to the men with whom he dealt.

Thette's, for instance, had often remarked to himself upon the singular freshness of the bodies, he had been struck again and again by the hangdog 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 two categorial to the unguarded counsels of his master.

He understood his duty in shore 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 bees, so throwing himself in fury upon his bed, and had fallen at last into that profound, uneasy slumber that so often follows on a night of pain.

And 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 precluded the noise and business of the day.

The ghouls had come out later than usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone.

Fetty's sick with sleep lighted them upstairs.

He heard their grumbling irish voices through a dream, and as they stripped the sack from the sad merchandise, he leaned, dozing with his shoulder propped against the wall.

He had to shake himself to find the men their money.

As he did so, his eyes lighted on the dead face He started.

He took two steps nearer, with the candle raised, God Almighty, he cried, wells Jane Gilberth.

The men said nothing, with their shovel near the door, and no, I tell you, he continued, she was alive with have yesterday.

It's impossible that she could be dead.

It's impossible.

You should have got this body fairly sure, sir, you're mistaken entirely, said one of the men.

But the other looked Fitts darkly in the eyes and demanded the money on the spot.

It was impossible to misconceive the threat or exaggerate the danger.

The lad's heart failed him.

He stammered some excuses, counted out the sum, and saw his hateful visitors depart.

No sooner were they gone than he hastened to confirm his doubts.

By a dozen unquestionable marks.

He identified the girl he had jested with the day before.

He saw with horror marks upon the body that might well betoken violence.

A panic seized him, and he took a refuge in his room.

There he reflected in length of the discovery that he had made, considered soberly the bearing of mister Kay's instructions, and the ager to himself of interference in so serious a business, and at last, in some perplexity, determined to wait for the advice of his immediate superior, the class assistant.

This was the young doctor Wolfe MacFarland, a high favorite among all the reckless students.

Clever, dissipated, and unscrupulous to the last degree, he had traveled and studied abroad.

His manners were agreeable and a little forward.

He was an authority on the stage, skillful on the ice or the lynx, with skate or golf club.

He dressed with nice audacity, and to put a finishing touch upon his glory, he kept a gig in a strong trotting horse.

With Fetty's he was on terms of intimacy.

Indeed, their relative positions called for some community of life, and when subjects were scarce, the pair would drive far into the country in McFarland's gig, visit and desecrate some lonely graveyard, and return before dawn with the booty to the door of the dissecting room.

On that particular morning, mcfolland arrived somewhat earlier than his wont Fetti's heard him and met him on the stairs, told him his story and showed him the cause for his alarm.

Mc farland examined the marks on her body.

Yes, he said, with a noddy it looks fishy.

Or what should I do?

Ask Fettys do?

Repeated the other?

Do you want to do anything?

Less?

Said soonest mended, I should say someone else might recognize her, objected Fetty's.

She is as well known as the castle rock.

We'll hope not, said mc farland.

And if anybody does, well you didn't, don't you see?

And there's an end.

The fact is this has been going on too long.

Stir up the mud.

You'll get cave in to the most unholy trouble.

You'll be in the shopping box yourself, so will I if you come to that.

I should like to know how any one of us would look, or what the devil we would have to say for ourselves in any Christian witness box.

For me, you know there's one thing certain that practically speaking, all of our subjects have been murdered.

My fallen cried Fettys come sneered the other as if you hadn't suspected it yourself.

Suspect me is one thing, and prove another.

Yes I know, And I'm as sorry as you are.

This should have come here tapping the body with his cane.

The next best thing for me is not to recognize him, and he said coolly, I don't you may if you please.

I don't dictate, but I think a man of the world would do as I do, and I may add I fancied that is what Kay would look at at our hands.

The question is why did he choose us for two assistants, And I answered because he didn't want old wives.

This was a tone of all others to affect the mind of a lad like Fetti's.

He agreed to irritate McFarland.

The body of the unfortunate girl was duly dissected, and no one remarked or appeared to recognize her.

One afternoon, when his day's work was over, Fetty's dropped into a popular tavern and found mac farland sitting with a stranger.

This was a small man, very pale and dark, with coal black eyes.

The cut of the features gave a promise of intellect and refinement, but which was feebly realized in his manners, for he proved, upon nearer acquaintance coarse, vulgar, and stupid.

He exercised, however, a very remarkable control over.

Mac Farland issued orders like the Great Bradshaw, became inflamed at the least discussion or delay, and commended rudely on the civility in which he was obeyed.

This most offensive person took her fancy to Fetny's on the spot, plied him with drinks, and honored him with unusual confidences in his past career.

If a tenth part of what he confessed was true, it was a very loathsome rogue, and the Lad's vanity was tickled by the attention of so experienced a man.

I'm a pretty bad fellow, beselt the stranger remarked, But mac Farland is the boy, Totty mac Farland, I call him Totty.

Order your friend another glass, or it might be Totty you jump up and shut the door.

Totty hates me, he said again.

Oh yes, totty you do.

Don't you call me that confounded name, groaned mac Farland.

Hear him.

Did you ever see the lad's play knife?

He would like to do that all over my body, remarked the stranger.

We're medicals.

O a better away than that, said Fetty's When we're dislike a dead friend of our.

As we dissect him.

My father looked up sharply, as though this jest was scarcely on his mind.

The afternoon passed, Gray, for that was the stranger's name, invited Fettis to join them at dinner, ordered a feast so sumptuous that the taver was thrown into commotion, and when all was done, commanded mac farlan to settle the bill.

It was late before they separated.

The man Gray was incapably drunk.

Mc farland, sobered by his fury, chewed the cut of the money he had been forced to squander and the slights he had been obliged to swallow.

Fetti's, with various liquord singing in his head, returned home with devious footsteps and a miner entirely in ambayins.

The next day mac farlo was absent from class, and Fetty smiled to himself as he imagined him still squiring the intolerable Gray from happened a tavern.

As soon as the hour of liberty had struck, he posted from place to place in quest of his last night's companions.

He could find them, however, nowhere, so he returned early to his rooms, went early to bed, and slept the sleep of the just.

And four the morning he was awakened by a well known signal.

Descending to the door, he was filled with astonishment to find mac Farland with his gig, and in the gig one of those long and ghastly packages with which he was so well acquainted.

What he cried, Have you been out alone?

How did you manage?

But mac Farland saddesced him, roughly, bidding him return to business.

When they had got the body up stairs and laid it on the table, mac Farland made it first as if he were going away.

Then he paused and seemed to hesitate.

And then you had better look at the face, said he, in tones of some constraint.

You had better, he repeated, as Fette's only stared at him in wonder.

But where and how and when did you come by?

It cried the other.

Look at the face was the only answer.

Feddis was staggered.

Strange doubts assailed him.

He looked from the young doctor to the body, and then back again.

At last, with a start, he did as he was bidden.

He had almost expected the sight that met his eyes, And yet the shock was cruel to see fixed in the rigidity of death, and naked in that coarse lay of sackcloth, the man whom he had left well clad and full of meat and sin, upon the threshold of a tavern awoke even in the thoughtless eddis some of the terrors of the conscience.

It was crass tibby which we echoed in the shulder.

The two whom had known should have come to lie upon these icy tables.

Yet these were only secondary thoughts.

The first concern regarded Wolfe, unprepared for a challenge so momentous he knew not how to look his comrade in the face.

He durst not meet his eye, and he had neither worse nor voice at his command.

It was mc farland himself for me the first advance.

He came up quietly behind and laid his hand gently but firmly on the other shoulders.

Richardson said he may have the head now.

Richardson was a student who had long been anxious for that portion of the human subject to dissect.

There was no answer, and the murderer resumed.

Talk your business, You must pay me, your accounts, you see, must tell me.

Fetty found a voice, the ghost of his own.

Pay you, he cried, pay her for that?

Why, yes, of course you must by all means, are not every possible account?

You must returned the other.

I dare not give it for nothing.

You dare not take it for nothing.

It would compromise us both.

This is another case like Jane Gilbreth's.

The more things are wrong, the more we must act.

If we're all right, Where does old Kay keep his money?

There, answered Fettis, hoarsely, pointing to a cupboard in the corner.

Give me the key, then said the other, calmly, holding out his hand.

There was an instant's hesitation that I was cast mac fire and could not suppress the nervous twitch, the infinitestimal mark of an immense relief.

As he felt the key between his fingers, He opened the cupboard, brought up pen and ink in a paper book that stood in one compartment and separated from the funds in a drawer of some suitable to the occasion.

Now look here, he said, there is a payment made.

First proof of your good faiths, first step to your security.

You have now to clinch it.

By the second.

Enter the payment in your book, and then you for your part may defy the devil.

The next few seconds were for Fetti's in agony of thought, but in balancing his terrors, it was the most immediate triumph.

Any feudal difficulty seemed almost welcome if he could avoid a present quarrel with mac farland.

He set down the candle which he had been carrying all this time, and with a steady hand entered the date, the nature, and the amount of the transaction.

And now said mc farland, it is only fair that you should pocket the lucre.

I've had my share already further by.

When a man of the world falls into a bit of luck, he has a few shillings extra in his pocket.

I am ashamed to speak of it.

But there's a rule to conduct in the case.

No treaty, no purchase of expensive class books, no squaring of oldettes.

Borrow, don't lend.

Mc farland began Fetty, still somewhat hoarsely.

I have put my neck in a halter or to aboige you to oblige me, cried wulf.

Oh, come, you did, as near as I can see in the man, and you downright had to do it in self defense.

Suppose I got into trouble.

Where would you be?

The second little matter flows clearly from the first, Mister Gray, is the continuation of Miss Gilbrath.

You can't begin and then stop.

If you begin, you must keep on beginning.

And that's the truth.

No rest for the wicked.

A horrible sense of blackness in the treachery of fate seized upon the soul of the unhappy student.

My God, he cried, for all I done?

Well, do I begin to be made a class assistant in the name of a reason?

Where is the harm in that service wanted?

The position service might have got?

It?

Would he have been?

Where are you now, my dear fellow, said McFarland, What a boy you are?

What harm has come to you?

What harm can come to you?

If you hold your tongue?

Why, man, do you know what this life is?

There are two squads of us, the lions and the lambs.

If you're a lamb, you'll come to lie upon these tables, like Gray or Jane Dilbrath.

If you are lying, you'll live and drive a horse like me, like Kay, like all the were, with any witter courage.

You're staggered at the first, But look at Kay, my dear fellow, You're clever, you have pluck.

I like you, and Kay likes you.

You're bored to lead the hunt.

And I tell you, on my honor and my experience of life, three days from now you'll laugh at all these scarecrows like a high school boy at the farce.

And with that McFarland took his departure and drove up the wind in his gear to get under cover before daylight.

Fetteus was left alone with his regrets.

He saw the miserable peril at which he stood involved.

He saw with inexpressible dismay, that there was no limit to his weakness, and that from concession to concession he had fallen, from the arbitra of Macfarland's destiny to his paid and helpless accomplice.

He would have given the world to been a little braver at the time, but it did not occur to him that he might still be brave.

The secret of Jane Gilbrath and the cursed entry in the day Book closed his mouth.

Hours passed, the class began to arrive.

The members of the Unhappy Gray were dealt out to one and to another, and received without remark.

Richardson was made happy with the head, and before the hour of freedom, rang Fetteus trembled with exultation to perceive how far they had already gone towards safety.

For two days he continued to watch with increasing joy the dreadful process of disguise.

On the third day, macfarlan made his appearance.

He had been he said, but he had made up for lost time by the energy at which he directed his students.

To Richardson in particularly, he extended the most valuable assistance and advice, and that student, encouraged by the praise of the demonstrator, burned high with ambitious hopes, and saw them meddle already in his grasp.

Before the week was out, Macfarland's prophecy had been fulfilled.

Fettys had outlived his harrors, had had forgotten his baseness.

He began to plume himself upon his courage, and so arranged the story in the mind that he could look back on these events with an unhealthy pride of his complice.

He saw.

But little they met, of course, in the business of the class.

They received their orders together from mister Kay.

At times they had a word or two in private, and mac Farland was from first to last particularly kind in jovial, but he was plain that he avoided any reference to their common secret.

And even when Fettys whispered to him that he had cast his lot with the lions and forsworn the lambs here decided to him smilingly to hold his peace at length, an occasion aro which threw the pair once more into a closer union.

Mister Kay 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 news of a burial in the rustic graveyard of Glencours.

Time had little changed the place in question.

It stood then as now upon a cross road, out of call of human inhabitants, and buried fathom deep in the furlige of six cedar trees.

The cries of the sheep upon the neighboring hills, the streamness upon either hand, one loudly singing among pebbles, the other dripping furtively from pond to pont, the stir of the wind in mountainous old flowing chestnuts, and once in seven days, the voice of the bell, and the old tunes of the precenter with the early sounds that disturbed the silence around the rural church.

The resurrection man, to use the by name of the period, was not to be deterred by any of the sanctities of customary piety.

It was part of astrain 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 inscriptions of bereaved affection to rustic neighborhoods where love is more commonly tenacious, and where some bonds of blood and 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 in Mattock.

The coffin was forced, the crimins torn, and the melancholy relics clad and sackcloth, After being rattled for hours and moonless byways, were at length exposed to uttermost indignities before a class of gaping boys, somewhat as two vultures may swoop upon a dying lamp.

Fetism MacFarland were to be let loose upon a grave in that green resting place.

The wife of a farmer, a woman who had lived for sixty years had been known for nothing but good, butter and godly conversation, was to be rooted from her grave at midnight and carried dead and naked into that far away city that she had always honored 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 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 Penetruk, 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 buried their lips of whisky with the glass vein.

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 mc farland handed a little pile of gold to his companion, a compliment, he said, between friends, these little dead accommodation's ultra flatic pipe lights.

Fetty's pocketed the money and applauded the sentiment to the echo.

You're a philosopher, he cried.

I was an absent till I knew you you and came between you by the Lord Harry.

But you'll make a mother of me.

Of course we will, applauded mac farland.

A man, I tell you, it required a man to back me up.

The other morning there was a big brawling forty year old cowards who would have turned sick at the look of the dead thing, But not you, who kept your head.

I watched you well, and why not fittess thus vaulted himself.

There was no affair of mine.

There was nothing to gain in the one side but disturbance and the other.

I could, counting your gratitude, dodge you see.

And he slapped his pocket till the gold pieces rang.

McFarland somehow felt a certain touch of alarm at these unpleasant words.

He never regretted that he had taught his young companions so successfully, But he had no time to interfere for the other.

Noisily continued his boastful strain.

A 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 MacFarland.

I was born with contempt, hell, God, devil, right, wrong, sing, crime, and all the old gallery of curiosities.

They may frighten boys, but men of the world like you and me despise them.

Is 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 arms sprightly shining, and the young men had to pay the bill and take the road.

They announced that they were abound for pebbles, and drove in that direction till they were clear of the last houses of the town.

Then, extinguishing their lamps, returned upon their course and followed a by road toward Glen Course.

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 the arisen blackness of their solemn, isolated destination in the second woods that traversed the neighborhood of the burying ground.

The last glimmer failed them, and it became necessary to kindle a match and rear loom 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 labors.

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 awarded by a dull rattle on the coffin lid.

At the same moment, MacFarland, 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 labors against a tree, and on the immediate verge of the steep bank descending to the stream.

Chance had taken a show room with the stone.

Then came a clang 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 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 knot 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 the end of their bored 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 his place, the other, taking the horse by the mouth, groped along by a wall and brush until they reached the wider road.

By the fisher's tryst, here was a faint, diffused radiancy, which they hailed like daylight.

By that they pushed the horse to a good pace, and began to rattle along merrily in the direction of the town.

They had both been wetted to the skin during their operations, and now as the gig jumped among the steep ruts, the thing that stood prop between them fell now upon one and now upon the other.

At every repetition of the horde of contact, each instinctively repelled it with the greater haste, and the process natural, though it was began to tell upon the nerves of the companions.

McFarland made some ill favored jest about the farmer's wife, but it came hollowly from his lips, and was allowed to drop in silence.

Still their unnatural burden bumped from side to side, and now the head would be laid, as if in confidence, upon their shoulders, And now the drenching sackcloth would flap icily about their faces.

A creeping chill began to possess the soul of Fetti's.

He peered at the bundle, and it seemed somehow larger than at first.

All over the countryside, and from every degree of distance, the farm dogs accompanied their passage with tragic elations.

And it grew and grew upon his mind that some unnatural miracle had been accomplished, that some nameless change should beform the dead body, and that it was in fear of their unholy burden that the dogs were howling.

For God's sake, said he, making a great effort to arrive at speech.

For God's sake, What's have a light seeming le mac Farner was effected in the same direction, for though he made no reply, he stopped the horse, passed the reins to his companion, got down, and proceeded to kindle the remaining lamp.

There by that time got no further than the cross road down to Autony.

The rain still poured, as though the damage was returning, and it was no easy matter to make a light in such a world of wet and darkness.

When at last the flickering blue flame had been transferred to the wick and began to expand and clarify and shed a wide circle of misty brightness round the gig, it became possible for the two young men to see each other and the thing that they had along with them.

The rain had molded the rough sacking to the outlines of the body underneath.

The head was distinct from the trunk, the shoulders plainly modeled something at once spectral and human.

Riveted their eyes upon the ghastly comrade of their drive.

For some time, mac Farland stood motionless, holding up the lamp.

A nameless dread was swathed like a wet sheet about the body, and tightened the white skin of the face of Fetti's A fear that was meaningless, a haw that could not be kept mounting to his brain.

Another beat of the watch and he had spoken, but his comrade forestalled him.

That is not a woman, said mac Farland in a hushed voice.

It was a woman whom I put her in, whispered fettis hold the lamp, said the other, I must see her face.

And as Veddis took the lamp, his companion untied the fastness of sack and drew down the cover from the head.

The light fell very clear upon the dark, well molded features and smooth shaven cheeks of a too familiar countenance often beheld in dreams.

Both of these young men awhile the yell rang up into the night.

Each leaped from his own side into the roadway.

The lamp fell broke and was extinguished, and the horse, terrified by this unusual commotion, bounded and went off towards Edinburgh at a gallop, bearing along with it its sole occupant of the gig, the body of the dead and long dissected gray.

The End of the Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson