"Make haste, make haste!" said the corpse; and Teig hurried forward as
well as he could to the graveyard, which was a little place on a bare
hill, with only a few graves in it. He walked boldly in through the open
gate, and nothing touched him, nor did he either hear or see anything.
He came to the middle of the ground, and then stood up and looked round
him for a spade or shovel to make a grave. As he was turning round and
searching, he suddenly perceived what startled him greatly--a newly-dug
grave right before him. He moved over to it, and looked down, and there
at the bottom he saw a black coffin. He clambered down into the hole and
lifted the lid, and found that (as he thought it would be) the coffin
was empty. He had hardly mounted up out of the hole, and was standing on
the brink, when the corpse, which had clung to him for more than eight
hours, suddenly relaxed its hold of his neck, and loosened its shins
from round his hips, and sank down with a _plop_ into the open coffin.

Teig fell down on his two knees at the brink of the grave, and gave
thanks to God. He made no delay then, but pressed down the coffin lid in
its place, and threw in the clay over it with his two hands, and when
the grave was filled up, he stamped and leaped on it with his feet,
until it was firm and hard, and then he left the place.

The sun was fast rising as he finished his work, and the first thing he
did was to return to the road, and look out for a house to rest himself
in. He found an inn at last; and lay down upon a bed there, and slept
till night. Then he rose up and ate a little, and fell asleep again till
morning. When he awoke in the morning he hired a horse and rode home. He
was more than twenty-six miles from home where he was, and he had come
all that way with the dead body on his back in one night.