They have no need to make use of the mattock; the soil is loose, and lifts easily. Nor is their task as excavators of long continuance—even shorter than they anticipated. Within less than eighteen inches of the surface their tools come in contact with a harder substance, which they can tell to be timber—the lid of a coffin.
Soon as striking it, the younger faces round to his companion, saying—
“I tolt ye so—listen!”
With the spade’s point he again gives the coffin a tap. It returns a hollow sound—too hollow for aught to be inside it!
“No body in there!” he adds.
“Hadn’t we better keep on, an’ make sure?” suggests the other.
“Sartint we had—an’ will.”
Once more they commence shovelling out the earth, and continue till it is all cleared from the coffin. Then, inserting the blade of the mattock under the edge of the lid, they raise it up; for it is not screwed down, only laid on loosely—the screws all drawn and gone!
Flinging himself on his face, and reaching forward, the younger man gropes inside the coffin—not expecting to feel any body there, but mechanically, and to see if there be aught else.
There is nothing—only emptiness. The house of the dead is untenanted—its tenant has been taken away!