out to his shed. Bates shut the house door, and went up the ladder
to his loft. Both were soon in the sound slumber that is the lot of men
who do much outdoor labour.

The girl helped the old woman to bed in the kitchen. Then she went back
and sat in the chamber of death.

Outside, the wind hustled the fallen leaves.

CHAPTER V.

At dawn Bates came down the ladder again, and went out quietly. The new
day was fair, and calm; none of his fears were fulfilled. The dead man
might start upon his journey, and Bates knew that the start must be an
early one.

He and Saul, taking long-handled oars and poles, went down to the
water's edge, where a big, flat-bottomed boat was lying drawn up on the
shore to avoid the autumn storms. The stones of the beach looked black:
here and there were bits of bright green moss upon them: both stones and
moss had a coating of thin ice that glistened in the morning light.

It was by dint of great exertion that they got the clumsy vessel into
the water and fastened her to a small wooden landing. They used more
strength than time in their work. There was none of that care and skill
required in the handling of the scow that a well-built craft would have
needed. When she was afloat and tied, they went up the hill again, and
harnessed a yoke of oxen to a rough wooden cart. Neither did this take
them long. Bates worked with a nervousness that almost amounted to
trembling. He had in his mind the dispute with the girl which he felt
sure awaited him.

In this fear also he was destined to be disappointed. When he went to
the inner room the coffin lay as he had left it, ready for its journey,
and on the girl's bed in the corner the thick quilts were heaped as
though the sleeper, had tossed restlessly. But now there was no
restlessness; he only saw her night-cap beyond the quills; it seemed
that, having perhaps turned her face to the wall to weep, she had at
last fallen into exhausted and dreamless slumber.

Bates and Saul carried out the coffin eagerly, quietly. Even to the
callous and shallow mind of Saul it was a relief to escape a contest
with an angry woman. They set the coffin on the cart, and steadied it
with a barrel of potash and sacks of buckwheat, which went to make up
the load. By a winding way, where the slope was easiest, they drove the
oxen between the trees, using the goad more and their voices as little
as might be, till they were a distance from the house. Some trees had
b