David Anderson, looking to the east and perceiving that the
sun would be up on them in a few minutes, set his foot on the
suicide's brow, and tramped down his head into the grave with his
iron-heeled shoe, until the nose and skull crashed again, and at
the same time uttered a terrible curse on the wretch who had
disgraced the family and given them all this trouble. This
anecdote, our guide said, he had heard when a boy, from the
mouth of Robert Laidlaw, one of the five men who buried the
body.
We soon reached the spot, and I confess I felt a singular sensation
when I saw the grey stone standing at the head, and another at the
feet, and the one half of the grave manifestly new-digged, and
closed up again as had been described. I could still scarcely deem
the thing to be a reality, for the ground did not appear to be wet,
but a kind of dry rotten moss. On looking around, we found some
fragments of clothes, some teeth, and part of a pocket-book,
which had not been returned into the grave when the body had
been last raised, for it had been twice raised before this, but only
from the loins upward.
To work we fell with two spades, and soon cleared away the
whole of the covering.
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