handkerchief upon the face. There lay a stalwart, grey-haired man--dead.
Perhaps he had sinned deeply in his life; perhaps he had lived as nobly
as his place and knowledge would permit--they could not tell. Probably
they each estimated what they knew of his life from a different
standpoint. The face was as ashen as the grey hair about it, as the grey
clothes the body wore. They stood and looked at it--those three, who
were bound to each other by no tie except such as the accident of time
and place had wrought. The dog, who understood what death was, exhibited
no excitement, no curiosity; his tail drooped; he moaned quietly against
the coffin.

Bates made an impatient exclamation and kicked him. The kick was a
subdued one. The wind-swept solitude without and the insistent presence
of death within had its effect upon them all. Saul looked uneasily over
his shoulder at the shadows which the guttering candle cast on the wall.
Bates handled the coffin-lid with that shrinking from noise which is
peculiar to such occasions.

"Ye'd better go in the other room," said he to Sissy. "It's unfortunate
we haven't a screw left--we'll have to nail it."

Sissy did not go. They had made holes in the wood for the nails as well
as they could, but they had to be hammered in. It was very
disagreeable--the sound and the jar. With each stroke of Saul's hammer
it seemed to the two workmen that the dead man jumped.

"There, man," cried Bates angrily; "that'll do."

Only four nails had been put in their places--one in each side. With
irritation that amounted to anger against Saul, Bates took the hammer