Bill was anxious to get away, and he was about to jump on his horse, when the constable rushed out of the bar, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Bill Marlock," he said, "is it running yees are, an' lavin' me wid de corp, stark an' shtiff, to rattle his bones over the logs and boulders to de cimetery. Yees found him above ground, an' de laste yees can do is to see him under de turf."
"I don't mind if I do, seein' you put it in that way," said Bill.
"I thought yees would; shure he'd do the same for you any day!"
The coffin, with the dead man in it, was carried out. When the jurymen saw it they rushed forward to lend a hand, and buzzed about like flies round carrion. They felt they had an interest in the poor body within. They had "sat" upon it, and given their verdict. They had carried out the law's behest, and they would carry out the "remains" on their shoulders. Bill took off his hat, and every man followed his example. Then the coffin was reverently laid on a cart, and covered with old sacks. The constable climbed into the seat, gathered the reins in his left hand, and reminded the horse by a flick on the ear that it must look alive when it was carrying a dead man. The horse awoke with a start, and dashed down the road. Half a dozen horsemen, with Bill at their head, galloped after, enveloped in a cloud of dust—dust before and behind.
The funeral procession passed on at a quick pace, but had not gone many miles when the constable looked back and found that Bill was the only mourner. The other men had dropped out of the ranks, and had silently disappeared, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise.
In about two hours the constable and Bill arrived at the village of Mopoke. The only clergyman in the place was hastily summoned to read the burial service. He was writing his next Sunday's sermon, with a pipe in his mouth. He jumped up immediately, stuck his pen absently behind his ear, pulled his surplice from a peg, and hitched it over his shoulders as he made for the door. The prospect of a fee unstiffened his rheumatic joints. There had been no burial in Mopoke for a year.
Funerals were as rare and far between as white kangaroos. The unwonted strokes of the gravedigger's axe, cutting some saplings, had rung like a knell from the cemetery in the morning, and the whole population had turned out to know the why and the wherefore. Boys and girls had played truant, and hid behind the tombs, until the school bell had ceased to tinkle and trouble their consciences; then they kicked up their heels like a flock of lambs. They had about as little reverence for the dead as hyenas. The boys played leapfrog over the graves, and the girls ran up and down the mounds or had a game of hop-scotch on the weedy paths. Suddenly they were hushed by a solemn voice chanting the words, "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord."
The children dashed away, tumbling over each other as they rushed to the grave, and clustered about it like rabbits round a water-hole in a drought. The cart came up slowly, and the horse looked solemn. The clergyman took his stand at the grave, reading the burial service, while the pebbles crunched under his feet and rattled below.
The constable represented the law, the clergyman the gospel.