“Wheer be the body?” said he, eagerly.
“Over yonder, on the grass. Oh, won’t you help me to carry it home?”
He looked at the hedge critically.
“Go, you,” he said, “and drag ’en hither. We’ll gat ’en over hedge together.”
I ran back to where it lay. It had collapsed a little to one side, and for an instant my breath caught in a wild thrill of hope that he had moved of himself. But the waxen hue of the face in the gathering dusk killed my emotion on its very issuing.
A strange loathing of the thing, lying so unresponsive, had in my race backward and forward sprung upon me, but before it could gain the mastery I had seized it under the arm-pits and was half-dragging, half-carrying it toward the road.
I was at the hedge before I knew it, and the red face of the carter was peering curiously down at the white heap beneath.
“Harned ’en up,” he said. “My, but it’s cold. Easy, now. Take the toes of ’en. Thart’s it—woa!” and he had it in his strong arms and shuffling heavily to the rear of his wagon, jerked back the flap of the tilt with his elbow and slid the body like a package into the interior.
“Get your coat, man,” he cried, “and coom away.”
I had forgotten in the terror of it all my own half-dressed state, for I had stripped only to my underclothes, and my boots were still on my feet. Mechanically I returned to the riverside, and hastily donning my coat and trousers, snatched up the other’s tumbled garments and ran back to the road.