m 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. The part of the grave that had been opened before was filled
with mossy mortar, which impeded us exceedingly, and entirely prevented
a proper investigation of the fore parts of the body. I will describe
everything as I saw it before our respectable witnesses, whose names I
shall publish at large if permitted. A number of the bones came up
separately; for, with the constant flow of liquid stuff into the deep
grave, we could not see to preserve them in their places. At length
great loads of coarse clothes, blanketing, plaiding, etc. appeared; we
tried to lift these regularly up, and, on doing so, part of a skeleton
came up, but no flesh, save a little that was hanging in dark flitters
about the spine, but which had no consistence; it was merely the
appearance of flesh without the substance. The head was wanting, and, I
being very anxious to possess the skull, the search was renewed among
the mortar and rags. We first found a part of the scalp, with the long
hair firm on it; which, on being cleaned, is neither black nor fair,
but a darkish dusk, the most common of any other colour. Soon
afterwards we found the skull, but it was not complete. A spade had
damaged it, and one of the temple quarters was wanting. I am no
phrenologist, not knowing one organ from another, but I thought the
skull of that wretched man no study. If it was particular for anything,
it was for a smooth, almost perfect rotundity, with only a little
protuberance above the vent of the ear.

When we came to that part of the grave that had never been opened
before, the appearance of everything was quite different. There the