“I know’d it!” he exclaims, drawing back. “I know’d my poor Mary wor no longer here!”
It is no body-snatcher who speaks thus, but Jack Wingate, his companion being Joseph Preece.
After which, the young waterman says not another word in reference to the discovery they have both made. He is less sad than thoughtful now. But he keeps his thoughts to himself, an occasional whisper to his companion being merely by way of direction, as they replace the lid upon the coffin, cover all up as before, shake in the last fragments of loose earth from the sheet, and restore the grave turf—adjusting the sods with as much exactitude, as though they were laying tesselated tiles!
Then, taking up their tools, they glide back to the boat, step into it, and shove off.
On return down stream they reflect in different ways; the old boatman of Llangorren still thinking it but a case of body-snatching, done by Coracle Dick, for the doctors—with a view to earning a dishonest penny.
Far otherwise the thoughts of Jack Wingate. He thinks, nay hopes—almost happily believes—that the body exhumed was not dead—never has been—but that Mary Morgan still lives, breathes, and has being!