left
A dead hand here?

_Duchess of Malfy._

The sexton's waning candle now warned him of the progress of time, and
having completed his arrangements, he addressed himself to Luke,
intimating his intention of departing. But receiving no answer, and
remarking no signs of life about his grandson, he began to be
apprehensive that he had fallen into a swoon. Drawing near to Luke, he
took him gently by the arm. Thus disturbed, Luke groaned aloud.

"I am glad to find you can breathe, if it be only after that melancholy
fashion," said the sexton; "but come, I have wasted time enough already.
You must indulge your grief elsewhere."

"Leave me," sighed Luke.

"What, here? It were as much as my office is worth. You can return some
other night. But go you must, now--at least, if you take on thus. I
never calculated upon a scene like this, or it had been long ere I
brought you hither. So come away; yet, stay;--but first lend me a hand
to replace the body in the coffin."

"Touch it not," exclaimed Luke; "she shall not rest another hour within
these accursed walls. I will bear her hence myself." And, sobbing
hysterically, he relapsed into his former insensibility.

"Poh! this is worse than midsummer madness," said Peter; "the lad is
crazed with grief, and all about a mother who has been four-and-twenty
years in her grave. I will e'en put her out of the way myself."

Saying which, he proceeded, as noiselessly as possible, to raise the
corpse in his arms, and deposited it softly within its former tenement.
Carefully as he executed his task, he could not accomplish it without
occasioning a slight accident to the fragile frame. Insensible as he
was, Luke had not relinquished the hold he maintained of his mother's
hand. And when Peter lifted the body, the ligaments connecting the hand
with the arm were suddenly snapped asunder. It would appear afterwards,
that this joint had been tampered with, and partially dislocated.
Without, however, entering into further particulars in this place, it
may be sufficient to observe that the hand, detached from the socket at
the wrist, remained within the gripe of Luke; while, ignorant of the
mischief he had occasioned, the sexton continued his labors
unconsciously, until the noise which he of necessity made in stamping
with his heel upon the plank, recalled his grandson to sensibility. The
first thing that the latter perceived, u