than a couple of shovelfuls, he noticed a man's hand laid bare by the
spade. "By my soul, I'll go no further, then," said he to himself;
"what use is it for me?" And he threw the clay in again on it, and
settled the flags as they had been before.

He left the church then, and his heart was heavy enough, but he shut the
door and locked it, and left the key where he found it. He sat down on a
tombstone that was near the door, and began thinking. He was in great
doubt what he should do. He laid his face between his two hands, and
cried for grief and fatigue, since he was dead certain at this time that
he never would come home alive. He made another attempt to loosen the
hands of the corpse that were squeezed round his neck, but they were as
tight as if they were clamped; and the more he tried to loosen them, the
tighter they squeezed him. He was going to sit down once more, when the
cold, horrid lips of the dead man said to him, "Carrick-fhad-vic-Orus,"
and he remembered the command of the good people to bring the corpse
with him to that place if he should be unable to bury it where he had
been.

He rose up, and looked about him. "I don't know the way," he said.

As soon as he had uttered the word, the corpse stretched out suddenly
its left hand that had been tightened round his neck, and kept it
pointing out, showing him the road he ought to follow. Teig went in the
direction that the fingers were stretched, and passed out of the
churchyard. He found himself on an old rutty, stony road, and he stood
still again, not knowing where to turn. The corpse stretched out its
bony hand a second time, and pointed out to him another road--not the
road by which he had come when approaching the old church. Teig followed
that road, and whenever he came to a path or road meeting it, the corpse