"It is of no consequence who I am: and as to this mask, why! a man can work as well with it as without it."
The approach of Black Jack and three of the others (the fourth had been left with the horses) prevented any farther conversation; and, throwing aside their cloaks, the galleyman and the three jurors instantly commenced clearing the grave.
Holgrave drew the brim of his hat again over his face, and folding his arms, looked silently on as the work proceeded.
"By the green wax!" said Black Jack, approaching at this instant, "as I stood yonder, reconnoitring the ground, a man shewed his head behind that ruined wall!"
"'Tis the fiend Calverley, or one of his imps," exclaimed Holgrave, springing forward to the broken wall; but if any object had really presented itself, it had, in a singular manner, disappeared—for Holgrave, after a few minutes of anxious search, returned without having discovered the trace of a human being.
The body of Edith had been raised during his absence, and, with the winding-sheet wrapped around the clothes in which it had been laid in the earth, was just placed in the galleyman's cloak when Holgrave came up. An involuntary cry burst from the yeoman as he threw himself upon the ground beside the corpse, and, removing the cloth, passionately kissed the hands and the forehead.
"Stephen Holgrave," cried the monk, sternly, "where is thy fortitude?—you have broken your word. Has thy manhood left thee?"
"She was my mother!" said the mourner, rising.
When he had retired, the chasm was hastily filled up; and then Black Jack, the galleyman, and two other jurors, took each a corner of the cloak, and, preceded by the monk, reciting in a low voice the prayers for the dead, and followed by Holgrave and the remaining jurors, leading the horses, proceeded at a quick pace to the church-yard of Hailes Abbey.
In little more than half an hour, they arrived at the meadow in which stood the parish church and the abbey of Hailes. The church, a small, plain Gothic building, with a red tiled roof, stood in the centre of a burial-ground, of dimensions adapted to the paucity of inhabitants in the parish. A low stone wall enclosed it, and some old beech-trees threw their shadows upon the mounds and the grave-stones that marked where "the rude fore-fathers of the hamlet" slept.