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<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nEvery night in the year, four of us sat in the small parlour of the George at Debenham\u2014the undertaker, and the landlord, and Fettes, and myself.\u00a0 Sometimes there would be more; but blow high, blow low, come rain or snow or frost, we four would be each planted in his own particular arm-chair.\u00a0 Fettes was an old drunken Scotchman, a man of education obviously, and a man of some property, since he lived in idleness.\u00a0 He had come to Debenham years ago, while still young, and by a mere continuance of living had grown to be an adopted townsman.\u00a0 His blue camlet cloak was a local antiquity, like the church-spire.\u00a0 His place in the parlour at the George, his absence from church, his old, crapulous, disreputable vices, were all things of course in Debenham.\u00a0 He had some vague Radical opinions and some fleeting infidelities, which he would now and again set forth and emphasise with tottering slaps upon the table.\u00a0 He drank rum\u2014five glasses regularly every evening; and for the greater portion of his nightly visit to the George sat, with his glass in his right hand, in a state of melancholy alcoholic saturation.\u00a0 We called him the Doctor, for he was supposed to have some special knowledge of medicine, and had been known, upon a pinch, to set a fracture or reduce a dislocation; but beyond these slight particulars, we had no knowledge of his character and antecedents.<\/span><\/p>\n One dark winter night\u2014it had struck nine some time before the landlord joined us\u2014there was a sick man in the George, a great neighbouring proprietor suddenly struck down with apoplexy on his way to Parliament; and the great man\u2019s still greater London doctor had been telegraphed to his bedside.\u00a0 It was the first time that such a thing had happened in Debenham, for the railway was but newly open, and we were all proportionately moved by the occurrence.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018He\u2019s come,\u2019 said the landlord, after he had filled and lighted his pipe.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018He?\u2019 said I.\u00a0 \u2018Who?\u2014not the doctor?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Himself,\u2019 replied our host.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018What is his name?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Doctor Macfarlane,\u2019 said the landlord.<\/span><\/p>\n Fettes was far through his third tumbler, stupidly fuddled, now nodding over, now staring mazily around him; but at the last word he seemed to awaken, and repeated the name \u2018Macfarlane\u2019 twice, quietly enough the first time, but with sudden emotion at the second.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Yes,\u2019 said the landlord, \u2018that\u2019s his name, Doctor Wolfe Macfarlane.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Fettes became instantly sober; his eyes awoke, his voice became clear, loud, and steady, his language forcible and earnest.\u00a0 We were all startled by the transformation, as if a man had risen from the dead.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I beg your pardon,\u2019 he said, \u2018I am afraid I have not been paying much attention to your talk.\u00a0 Who is this Wolfe Macfarlane?\u2019\u00a0 And then, when he had heard the landlord out, \u2018It cannot be, it cannot be,\u2019 he added; \u2018and yet I would like well to see him face to face.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Do you know him, Doctor?\u2019 asked the undertaker, with a gasp.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018God forbid!\u2019 was the reply.\u00a0 \u2018And yet the name is a strange one; it were too much to fancy two.\u00a0 Tell me, landlord, is he old?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Well,\u2019 said the host, \u2018he\u2019s not a young man, to be sure, and his hair is white; but he looks younger than you.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018He is older, though; years older.\u00a0 But,\u2019 with a slap upon the table, \u2018it\u2019s the rum you see in my face\u2014rum and sin.\u00a0 This man, perhaps, may have an easy conscience and a good digestion.\u00a0 Conscience!\u00a0 Hear me speak.\u00a0 You would think I was some good, old, decent Christian, would you not?\u00a0 But no, not I; I never canted.\u00a0 Voltaire might have canted if he\u2019d stood in my shoes; but the brains\u2019\u2014with a rattling fillip on his bald head\u2014\u2018the brains were clear and active, and I saw and made no deductions.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018If you know this doctor,\u2019 I ventured to remark, after a somewhat awful pause, \u2018I should gather that you do not share the landlord\u2019s good opinion.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Fettes paid no regard to me.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Yes,\u2019 he said, with sudden decision, \u2018I must see him face to face.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n There was another pause, and then a door was closed rather sharply on the first floor, and a step was heard upon the stair.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018That\u2019s the doctor,\u2019 cried the landlord.\u00a0 \u2018Look sharp, and you can catch him.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n It was but two steps from the small parlour to the door of the old George Inn; the wide oak staircase landed almost in the street; there was room for a Turkey rug and nothing more between the threshold and the last round of the descent; but this little space was every evening brilliantly lit up, not only by the light upon the stair and the great signal-lamp below the sign, but by the warm radiance of the bar-room window.\u00a0 The George thus brightly advertised itself to passers-by in the cold street.\u00a0 Fettes walked steadily to the spot, and we, who were hanging behind, beheld the two men meet, as one of them had phrased it, face to face.\u00a0 Dr. Macfarlane was alert and vigorous.\u00a0 His white hair set off his pale and placid, although energetic, countenance.\u00a0 He was richly dressed in the finest of broadcloth and the whitest of linen, with a great gold watch-chain, and studs and spectacles of the same precious material.\u00a0 He wore a broad-folded tie, white and speckled with lilac, and he carried on his arm a comfortable driving-coat of fur.\u00a0 There was no doubt but he became his years, breathing, as he did, of wealth and consideration; and it was a surprising contrast to see our parlour sot\u2014bald, dirty, pimpled, and robed in his old camlet cloak\u2014confront him at the bottom of the stairs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Macfarlane!\u2019 he said somewhat loudly, more like a herald than a friend.<\/span><\/p>\n The great doctor pulled up short on the fourth step, as though the familiarity of the address surprised and somewhat shocked his dignity.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Toddy Macfarlane!\u2019 repeated Fettes.<\/span><\/p>\n The London man almost staggered.\u00a0 He stared for the swiftest of seconds at the man before him, glanced behind him with a sort of scare, and then in a startled whisper, \u2018Fettes!\u2019 he said, \u2018You!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Ay,\u2019 said the other, \u2018me!\u00a0 Did you think I was dead too?\u00a0 We are not so easy shut of our acquaintance.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Hush, hush!\u2019 exclaimed the doctor.\u00a0 \u2018Hush, hush! this meeting is so unexpected\u2014I can see you are unmanned.\u00a0 I hardly knew you, I confess, at first; but I am overjoyed\u2014overjoyed to have this opportunity.\u00a0 For the present it must be how-d\u2019ye-do and good-bye in one, for my fly is waiting, and I must not fail the train; but you shall\u2014let me see\u2014yes\u2014you shall give me your address, and you can count on early news of me.\u00a0 We must do something for you, Fettes.\u00a0 I fear you are out at elbows; but we must see to that for auld lang syne, as once we sang at suppers.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Money!\u2019 cried Fettes; \u2018money from you!\u00a0 The money that I had from you is lying where I cast it in the rain.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Dr. Macfarlane had talked himself into some measure of superiority and confidence, but the uncommon energy of this refusal cast him back into his first confusion.<\/span><\/p>\n A horrible, ugly look came and went across his almost venerable countenance.\u00a0 \u2018My dear fellow,\u2019 he said, \u2018be it as you please; my last thought is to offend you.\u00a0 I would intrude on none.\u00a0 I will leave you my address, however\u2014\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I do not wish it\u2014I do not wish to know the roof that shelters you,\u2019 interrupted the other.\u00a0 \u2018I heard your name; I feared it might be you; I wished to know if, after all, there were a God; I know now that there is none.\u00a0 Begone!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n He still stood in the middle of the rug, between the stair and doorway; and the great London physician, in order to escape, would be forced to step to one side.\u00a0 It was plain that he hesitated before the thought of this humiliation.\u00a0 White as he was, there was a dangerous glitter in his spectacles; but while he still paused uncertain, he became aware that the driver of his fly was peering in from the street at this unusual scene and caught a glimpse at the same time of our little body from the parlour, huddled by the corner of the bar.\u00a0 The presence of so many witnesses decided him at once to flee.\u00a0 He crouched together, brushing on the wainscot, and made a dart like a serpent, striking for the door.\u00a0 But his tribulation was not yet entirely at an end, for even as he was passing Fettes clutched him by the arm and these words came in a whisper, and yet painfully distinct, \u2018Have you seen it again?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n The great rich London doctor cried out aloud with a sharp, throttling cry; he dashed his questioner across the open space, and, with his hands over his head, fled out of the door like a detected thief.\u00a0 Before it had occurred to one of us to make a movement the fly was already rattling toward the station.\u00a0 The scene was over like a dream, but the dream had left proofs and traces of its passage.\u00a0 Next day the servant found the fine gold spectacles broken on the threshold, and that very night we were all standing breathless by the bar-room window, and Fettes at our side, sober, pale, and resolute in look.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018God protect us, Mr. Fettes!\u2019 said the landlord, coming first into possession of his customary senses.\u00a0 \u2018What in the universe is all this?\u00a0 These are strange things you have been saying.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Fettes turned toward us; he looked us each in succession in the face.\u00a0 \u2018See if you can hold your tongues,\u2019 said he.\u00a0 \u2018That man Macfarlane is not safe to cross; those that have done so already have repented it too late.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n And then, without so much as finishing his third glass, far less waiting for the other two, he bade us good-bye and went forth, under the lamp of the hotel, into the black night.<\/span><\/p>\n We three turned to our places in the parlour, with the big red fire and four clear candles; and as we recapitulated what had passed, the first chill of our surprise soon changed into a glow of curiosity.\u00a0 We sat late; it was the latest session I have known in the old George.\u00a0 Each man, before we parted, had his theory that he was bound to prove; and none of us had any nearer business in this world than to track out the past of our condemned companion, and surprise the secret that he shared with the great London doctor.\u00a0 It is no great boast, but I believe I was a better hand at worming out a story than either of my fellows at the George; and perhaps there is now no other man alive who could narrate to you the following foul and unnatural events.<\/span><\/p>\n In his young days Fettes studied medicine in the schools of Edinburgh.\u00a0 He had talent of a kind, the talent that picks up swiftly what it hears and readily retails it for its own.\u00a0 He worked little at home; but he was civil, attentive, and intelligent in the presence of his masters.\u00a0 They soon picked him out as a lad who listened closely and remembered well; nay, strange as it seemed to me when I first heard it, he was in those days well favoured, and pleased by his exterior.\u00a0 There was, at that period, a certain extramural teacher of anatomy, whom I shall here designate by the letter K.\u00a0 His name was subsequently too well known.\u00a0 The man who bore it skulked through the streets of Edinburgh in disguise, while the mob that applauded at the execution of Burke called loudly for the blood of his employer.\u00a0 But Mr. K\u2014 was then at the top of his vogue; he enjoyed a popularity due partly to his own talent and address, partly to the incapacity of his rival, the university professor.\u00a0 The students, at least, swore by his name, and Fettes believed himself, and was believed by others, to have laid the foundations of success when he had acquired the favour of this meteorically famous man.\u00a0 Mr. K\u2014 was a <\/span>bon vivant<\/span><\/i> as well as an accomplished teacher; he liked a sly illusion no less than a careful preparation.\u00a0 In both capacities Fettes enjoyed and deserved his notice, and by the second year of his attendance he held the half-regular position of second demonstrator or sub-assistant in his class.<\/span><\/p>\n In this capacity the charge of the theatre and lecture-room devolved in particular upon his shoulders.\u00a0 He had to answer for the cleanliness of the premises and the conduct of the other students, and it was a part of his duty to supply, receive, and divide the various subjects.\u00a0 It was with a view to this last\u2014at that time very delicate\u2014affair that he was lodged by Mr. K\u2014 in the same wynd, and at last in the same building, with the dissecting-rooms.\u00a0 Here, after a night of turbulent pleasures, his hand still tottering, his sight still misty and confused, he would be called out of bed in the black hours before the winter dawn by the unclean and desperate interlopers who supplied the table.\u00a0 He would open the door to these men, since infamous throughout the land.\u00a0 He would help them with their tragic burden, pay them their sordid price, and remain alone, when they were gone, with the unfriendly relics of humanity.\u00a0 From such a scene he would return to snatch another hour or two of slumber, to repair the abuses of the night, and refresh himself for the labours of the day.<\/span><\/p>\n Few lads could have been more insensible to the impressions of a life thus passed among the ensigns of mortality.\u00a0 His mind was closed against all general considerations.\u00a0 He was incapable of interest in the fate and fortunes of another, the slave of his own desires and low ambitions.\u00a0 Cold, light, and selfish in the last resort, he had that modicum of prudence, miscalled morality, which keeps a man from inconvenient drunkenness or punishable theft.\u00a0 He coveted, besides, a measure of consideration from his masters and his fellow-pupils, and he had no desire to fail conspicuously in the external parts of life.\u00a0 Thus he made it his pleasure to gain some distinction in his studies, and day after day rendered unimpeachable eye-service to his employer, Mr. K\u2014.\u00a0 For his day of work he indemnified himself by nights of roaring, blackguardly enjoyment; and when that balance had been struck, the organ that he called his conscience declared itself content.<\/span><\/p>\n The supply of subjects was a continual trouble to him as well as to his master.\u00a0 In that large and busy class, the raw material of the anatomists kept perpetually running out; and the business thus rendered necessary was not only unpleasant in itself, but threatened dangerous consequences to all who were concerned.\u00a0 It was the policy of Mr. K\u2014 to ask no questions in his dealings with the trade.\u00a0 \u2018They bring the body, and we pay the price,\u2019 he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration\u2014\u2018<\/span>quid pro quo<\/span><\/i>.\u2019\u00a0 And, again, and somewhat profanely, \u2018Ask no questions,\u2019 he would tell his assistants, \u2018for conscience\u2019 sake.\u2019\u00a0 There was no understanding that the subjects were provided by the crime of murder.\u00a0 Had that idea been broached to him in words, he would have recoiled in horror; but the lightness of his speech upon so grave a matter was, in itself, an offence against good manners, and a temptation to the men with whom he dealt.\u00a0 Fettes, for instance, had often remarked to himself upon the singular freshness of the bodies.\u00a0 He had been struck again and again by the hang-dog, abominable looks of the ruffians who came to him before the dawn; and putting things together clearly in his private thoughts, he perhaps attributed a meaning too immoral and too categorical to the unguarded counsels of his master.\u00a0 He understood his duty, in short, to have three branches: to take what was brought, to pay the price, and to avert the eye from any evidence of crime.<\/span><\/p>\n One November morning this policy of silence was put sharply to the test.\u00a0 He had been awake all night with a racking toothache\u2014pacing his room like a caged beast or throwing himself in fury on his bed\u2014and had fallen at last into that profound, uneasy slumber that so often follows on a night of pain, when he was awakened by the third or fourth angry repetition of the concerted signal.\u00a0 There was a thin, bright moonshine; it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded the noise and business of the day.\u00a0 The ghouls had come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone.\u00a0 Fettes, sick with sleep, lighted them upstairs.\u00a0 He heard their grumbling Irish voices through a dream; and as they stripped the sack from their sad merchandise he leaned dozing, with his shoulder propped against the wall; he had to shake himself to find the men their money.\u00a0 As he did so his eyes lighted on the dead face.\u00a0 He started; he took two steps nearer, with the candle raised.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018God Almighty!\u2019 he cried.\u00a0 \u2018That is Jane Galbraith!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n The men answered nothing, but they shuffled nearer the door.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I know her, I tell you,\u2019 he continued.\u00a0 \u2018She was alive and hearty yesterday.\u00a0 It\u2019s impossible she can be dead; it\u2019s impossible you should have got this body fairly.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Sure, sir, you\u2019re mistaken entirely,\u2019 said one of the men.<\/span><\/p>\n But the other looked Fettes darkly in the eyes, and demanded the money on the spot.<\/span><\/p>\n It was impossible to misconceive the threat or to exaggerate the danger.\u00a0 The lad\u2019s heart failed him.\u00a0 He stammered some excuses, counted out the sum, and saw his hateful visitors depart.\u00a0 No sooner were they gone than he hastened to confirm his doubts.\u00a0 By a dozen unquestionable marks he identified the girl he had jested with the day before.\u00a0 He saw, with horror, marks upon her body that might well betoken violence.\u00a0 A panic seized him, and he took refuge in his room.\u00a0 There he reflected at length over the discovery that he had made; considered soberly the bearing of Mr. K\u2014\u2019s instructions and the danger to himself of interference in so serious a business, and at last, in sore perplexity, determined to wait for the advice of his immediate superior, the class assistant.<\/span><\/p>\n This was a young doctor, Wolfe Macfarlane, a high favourite among all the reckless students, clever, dissipated, and unscrupulous to the last degree.\u00a0 He had travelled and studied abroad.\u00a0 His manners were agreeable and a little forward.\u00a0 He was an authority on the stage, skilful on the ice or the links with skate or golf-club; he dressed with nice audacity, and, to put the finishing touch upon his glory, he kept a gig and a strong trotting-horse.\u00a0 With Fettes he was on terms of intimacy; indeed, their relative positions called for some community of life; and when subjects were scarce the pair would drive far into the country in Macfarlane\u2019s gig, visit and desecrate some lonely graveyard, and return before dawn with their booty to the door of the dissecting-room.<\/span><\/p>\n On that particular morning Macfarlane arrived somewhat earlier than his wont.\u00a0 Fettes heard him, and met him on the stairs, told him his story, and showed him the cause of his alarm.\u00a0 Macfarlane examined the marks on her body.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Yes,\u2019 he said with a nod, \u2018it looks fishy.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Well, what should I do?\u2019 asked Fettes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Do?\u2019 repeated the other.\u00a0 \u2018Do you want to do anything?\u00a0 Least said soonest mended, I should say.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Some one else might recognise her,\u2019 objected Fettes.\u00a0 \u2018She was as well known as the Castle Rock.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019ll hope not,\u2019 said Macfarlane, \u2018and if anybody does\u2014well, you didn\u2019t, don\u2019t you see, and there\u2019s an end.\u00a0 The fact is, this has been going on too long.\u00a0 Stir up the mud, and you\u2019ll get K\u2014 into the most unholy trouble; you\u2019ll be in a shocking box yourself.\u00a0 So will I, if you come to that.\u00a0 I should like to know how any one of us would look, or what the devil we should have to say for ourselves, in any Christian witness-box.\u00a0 For me, you know there\u2019s one thing certain\u2014that, practically speaking, all our subjects have been murdered.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Macfarlane!\u2019 cried Fettes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Come now!\u2019 sneered the other.\u00a0 \u2018As if you hadn\u2019t suspected it yourself!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Suspecting is one thing\u2014\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018And proof another.\u00a0 Yes, I know; and I\u2019m as sorry as you are this should have come here,\u2019 tapping the body with his cane.\u00a0 \u2018The next best thing for me is not to recognise it; and,\u2019 he added coolly, \u2018I don\u2019t.\u00a0 You may, if you please.\u00a0 I don\u2019t dictate, but I think a man of the world would do as I do; and I may add, I fancy that is what K\u2014 would look for at our hands.\u00a0 The question is, Why did he choose us two for his assistants?\u00a0 And I answer, because he didn\u2019t want old wives.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n This was the tone of all others to affect the mind of a lad like Fettes.\u00a0 He agreed to imitate Macfarlane.\u00a0 The body of the unfortunate girl was duly dissected, and no one remarked or appeared to recognise her.<\/span><\/p>\n One afternoon, when his day\u2019s work was over, Fettes dropped into a popular tavern and found Macfarlane sitting with a stranger.\u00a0 This was a small man, very pale and dark, with coal-black eyes.\u00a0 The cut of his features gave a promise of intellect and refinement which was but feebly realised in his manners, for he proved, upon a nearer acquaintance, coarse, vulgar, and stupid.\u00a0 He exercised, however, a very remarkable control over Macfarlane; issued orders like the Great Bashaw; became inflamed at the least discussion or delay, and commented rudely on the servility with which he was obeyed.\u00a0 This most offensive person took a fancy to Fettes on the spot, plied him with drinks, and honoured him with unusual confidences on his past career.\u00a0 If a tenth part of what he confessed were true, he was a very loathsome rogue; and the lad\u2019s vanity was tickled by the attention of so experienced a man.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m a pretty bad fellow myself,\u2019 the stranger remarked, \u2018but Macfarlane is the boy\u2014Toddy Macfarlane I call him.\u00a0 Toddy, order your friend another glass.\u2019\u00a0 Or it might be, \u2018Toddy, you jump up and shut the door.\u2019\u00a0 \u2018Toddy hates me,\u2019 he said again.\u00a0 \u2018Oh yes, Toddy, you do!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Don\u2019t you call me that confounded name,\u2019 growled Macfarlane.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Hear him!\u00a0 Did you ever see the lads play knife?\u00a0 He would like to do that all over my body,\u2019 remarked the stranger.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018We medicals have a better way than that,\u2019 said Fettes.\u00a0 \u2018When we dislike a dead friend of ours, we dissect him.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Macfarlane looked up sharply, as though this jest were scarcely to his mind.<\/span><\/p>\n The afternoon passed.\u00a0 Gray, for that was the stranger\u2019s name, invited Fettes to join them at dinner, ordered a feast so sumptuous that the tavern was thrown into commotion, and when all was done commanded Macfarlane to settle the bill.\u00a0 It was late before they separated; the man Gray was incapably drunk.\u00a0 Macfarlane, sobered by his fury, chewed the cud of the money he had been forced to squander and the slights he had been obliged to swallow.\u00a0 Fettes, with various liquors singing in his head, returned home with devious footsteps and a mind entirely in abeyance.\u00a0 Next day Macfarlane was absent from the class, and Fettes smiled to himself as he imagined him still squiring the intolerable Gray from tavern to tavern.\u00a0 As soon as the hour of liberty had struck he posted from place to place in quest of his last night\u2019s companions.\u00a0 He could find them, however, nowhere; so returned early to his rooms, went early to bed, and slept the sleep of the just.<\/span><\/p>\n At four in the morning he was awakened by the well-known signal.\u00a0 Descending to the door, he was filled with astonishment to find Macfarlane with his gig, and in the gig one of those long and ghastly packages with which he was so well acquainted.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018What?\u2019 he cried.\u00a0 \u2018Have you been out alone?\u00a0 How did you manage?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n But Macfarlane silenced him roughly, bidding him turn to business.\u00a0 When they had got the body upstairs and laid it on the table, Macfarlane made at first as if he were going away.\u00a0 Then he paused and seemed to hesitate; and then, \u2018You had better look at the face,\u2019 said he, in tones of some constraint.\u00a0 \u2018You had better,\u2019 he repeated, as Fettes only stared at him in wonder.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018But where, and how, and when did you come by it?\u2019 cried the other.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Look at the face,\u2019 was the only answer.<\/span><\/p>\n Fettes was staggered; strange doubts assailed him.\u00a0 He looked from the young doctor to the body, and then back again.\u00a0 At last, with a start, he did as he was bidden.\u00a0 He had almost expected the sight that met his eyes, and yet the shock was cruel.\u00a0 To see, fixed in the rigidity of death and naked on that coarse layer of sackcloth, the man whom he had left well clad and full of meat and sin upon the threshold of a tavern, awoke, even in the thoughtless Fettes, some of the terrors of the conscience.\u00a0 It was a <\/span>cras tibi<\/span><\/i> which re-echoed in his soul, that two whom he had known should have come to lie upon these icy tables.\u00a0 Yet these were only secondary thoughts.\u00a0 His first concern regarded Wolfe.\u00a0 Unprepared for a challenge so momentous, he knew not how to look his comrade in the face.\u00a0 He durst not meet his eye, and he had neither words nor voice at his command.<\/span><\/p>\n It was Macfarlane himself who made the first advance.\u00a0 He came up quietly behind and laid his hand gently but firmly on the other\u2019s shoulder.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Richardson,\u2019 said he, \u2018may have the head.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Now Richardson was a student who had long been anxious for that portion of the human subject to dissect.\u00a0 There was no answer, and the murderer resumed: \u2018Talking of business, you must pay me; your accounts, you see, must tally.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Fettes found a voice, the ghost of his own: \u2018Pay you!\u2019 he cried.\u00a0 \u2018Pay you for that?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Why, yes, of course you must.\u00a0 By all means and on every possible account, you must,\u2019 returned the other.\u00a0 \u2018I dare not give it for nothing, you dare not take it for nothing; it would compromise us both.\u00a0 This is another case like Jane Galbraith\u2019s.\u00a0 The more things are wrong the more we must act as if all were right.\u00a0 Where does old K\u2014 keep his money?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018There,\u2019 answered Fettes hoarsely, pointing to a cupboard in the corner.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Give me the key, then,\u2019 said the other, calmly, holding out his hand.<\/span><\/p>\n There was an instant\u2019s hesitation, and the die was cast.\u00a0 Macfarlane could not suppress a nervous twitch, the infinitesimal mark of an immense relief, as he felt the key between his fingers.\u00a0 He opened the cupboard, brought out pen and ink and a paper-book that stood in one compartment, and separated from the funds in a drawer a sum suitable to the occasion.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Now, look here,\u2019 he said, \u2018there is the payment made\u2014first proof of your good faith: first step to your security.\u00a0 You have now to clinch it by a second.\u00a0 Enter the payment in your book, and then you for your part may defy the devil.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n The next few seconds were for Fettes an agony of thought; but in balancing his terrors it was the most immediate that triumphed.\u00a0 Any future difficulty seemed almost welcome if he could avoid a present quarrel with Macfarlane.\u00a0 He set down the candle which he had been carrying all this time, and with a steady hand entered the date, the nature, and the amount of the transaction.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018And now,\u2019 said Macfarlane, \u2018it\u2019s only fair that you should pocket the lucre.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had my share already.\u00a0 By the bye, when a man of the world falls into a bit of luck, has a few shillings extra in his pocket\u2014I\u2019m ashamed to speak of it, but there\u2019s a rule of conduct in the case.\u00a0 No treating, no purchase of expensive class-books, no squaring of old debts; borrow, don\u2019t lend.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Macfarlane,\u2019 began Fettes, still somewhat hoarsely, \u2018I have put my neck in a halter to oblige you.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018To oblige me?\u2019 cried Wolfe.\u00a0 \u2018Oh, come!\u00a0 You did, as near as I can see the matter, what you downright had to do in self-defence.\u00a0 Suppose I got into trouble, where would you be?\u00a0 This second little matter flows clearly from the first.\u00a0 Mr. Gray is the continuation of Miss Galbraith.\u00a0 You can\u2019t begin and then stop.\u00a0 If you begin, you must keep on beginning; that\u2019s the truth.\u00a0 No rest for the wicked.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy student.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018My God!\u2019 he cried, \u2018but what have I done? and when did I begin?\u00a0 To be made a class assistant\u2014in the name of reason, where\u2019s the harm in that?\u00a0 Service wanted the position; Service might have got it.\u00a0 Would <\/span>he<\/span><\/i> have been where <\/span>I<\/span><\/i> am now?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018My dear fellow,\u2019 said Macfarlane, \u2018what a boy you are!\u00a0 What harm <\/span>has<\/span><\/i> come to you?\u00a0 What harm <\/span>can<\/span><\/i> come to you if you hold your tongue?\u00a0 Why, man, do you know what this life is?\u00a0 There are two squads of us\u2014the lions and the lambs.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a lamb, you\u2019ll come to lie upon these tables like Gray or Jane Galbraith; if you\u2019re a lion, you\u2019ll live and drive a horse like me, like K\u2014, like all the world with any wit or courage.\u00a0 You\u2019re staggered at the first.\u00a0 But look at K\u2014!\u00a0 My dear fellow, you\u2019re clever, you have pluck.\u00a0 I like you, and K\u2014 likes you.\u00a0 You were born to lead the hunt; and I tell you, on my honour and my experience of life, three days from now you\u2019ll laugh at all these scarecrows like a High School boy at a farce.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n And with that Macfarlane took his departure and drove off up the wynd in his gig to get under cover before daylight.\u00a0 Fettes was thus left alone with his regrets.\u00a0 He saw the miserable peril in which he stood involved.\u00a0 He saw, with inexpressible dismay, that there was no limit to his weakness, and that, from concession to concession, he had fallen from the arbiter of Macfarlane\u2019s destiny to his paid and helpless accomplice.\u00a0 He would have given the world to have been a little braver at the time, but it did not occur to him that he might still be brave.\u00a0 The secret of Jane Galbraith and the cursed entry in the day-book closed his mouth.<\/span><\/p>\n Hours passed; the class began to arrive; the members of the unhappy Gray were dealt out to one and to another, and received without remark.\u00a0 Richardson was made happy with the head; and before the hour of freedom rang Fettes trembled with exultation to perceive how far they had already gone toward safety.<\/span><\/p>\n For two days he continued to watch, with increasing joy, the dreadful process of disguise.<\/span><\/p>\n On the third day Macfarlane made his appearance.\u00a0 He had been ill, he said; but he made up for lost time by the energy with which he directed the students.\u00a0 To Richardson in particular he extended the most valuable assistance and advice, and that student, encouraged by the praise of the demonstrator, burned high with ambitious hopes, and saw the medal already in his grasp.<\/span><\/p>\n Before the week was out Macfarlane\u2019s prophecy had been fulfilled.\u00a0 Fettes had outlived his terrors and had forgotten his baseness.\u00a0 He began to plume himself upon his courage, and had so arranged the story in his mind that he could look back on these events with an unhealthy pride.\u00a0 Of his accomplice he saw but little.\u00a0 They met, of course, in the business of the class; they received their orders together from Mr. K\u2014.\u00a0 At times they had a word or two in private, and Macfarlane was from first to last particularly kind and jovial.\u00a0 But it was plain that he avoided any reference to their common secret; and even when Fettes whispered to him that he had cast in his lot with the lions and foresworn the lambs, he only signed to him smilingly to hold his peace.<\/span><\/p>\n At length an occasion arose which threw the pair once more into a closer union.\u00a0 Mr. K\u2014 was again short of subjects; pupils were eager, and it was a part of this teacher\u2019s pretensions to be always well supplied.\u00a0 At the same time there came the news of a burial in the rustic graveyard of Glencorse.\u00a0 Time has little changed the place in question.\u00a0 It stood then, as now, upon a cross road, out of call of human habitations, and buried fathom deep in the foliage of six cedar trees.\u00a0 The cries of the sheep upon the neighbouring hills, the streamlets upon either hand, one loudly singing among pebbles, the other dripping furtively from pond to pond, the stir of the wind in mountainous old flowering chestnuts, and once in seven days the voice of the bell and the old tunes of the precentor, were the only sounds that disturbed the silence around the rural church.\u00a0 The Resurrection Man\u2014to use a byname of the period\u2014was not to be deterred by any of the sanctities of customary piety.\u00a0 It was part of his trade to despise and desecrate the scrolls and trumpets of old tombs, the paths worn by the feet of worshippers and mourners, and the offerings and the inscriptions of bereaved affection.\u00a0 To rustic neighbourhoods, where love is more than commonly tenacious, and where some bonds of blood or fellowship unite the entire society of a parish, the body-snatcher, far from being repelled by natural respect, was attracted by the ease and safety of the task.\u00a0 To bodies that had been laid in earth, in joyful expectation of a far different awakening, there came that hasty, lamp-lit, terror-haunted resurrection of the spade and mattock.\u00a0 The coffin was forced, the cerements torn, and the melancholy relics, clad in sackcloth, after being rattled for hours on moonless byways, were at length exposed to uttermost indignities before a class of gaping boys.<\/span><\/p>\n Somewhat as two vultures may swoop upon a dying lamb, Fettes and Macfarlane were to be let loose upon a grave in that green and quiet resting-place.\u00a0 The wife of a farmer, a woman who had lived for sixty years, and been known for nothing but good butter and a godly conversation, was to be rooted from her grave at midnight and carried, dead and naked, to that far-away city that she had always honoured with her Sunday\u2019s best; the place beside her family was to be empty till the crack of doom; her innocent and almost venerable members to be exposed to that last curiosity of the anatomist.<\/span><\/p>\n Late one afternoon the pair set forth, well wrapped in cloaks and furnished with a formidable bottle.\u00a0 It rained without remission\u2014a cold, dense, lashing rain.\u00a0 Now and again there blew a puff of wind, but these sheets of falling water kept it down.\u00a0 Bottle and all, it was a sad and silent drive as far as Penicuik, where they were to spend the evening.\u00a0 They stopped once, to hide their implements in a thick bush not far from the churchyard, and once again at the Fisher\u2019s Tryst, to have a toast before the kitchen fire and vary their nips of whisky with a glass of ale.\u00a0 When they reached their journey\u2019s end the gig was housed, the horse was fed and comforted, and the two young doctors in a private room sat down to the best dinner and the best wine the house afforded.\u00a0 The lights, the fire, the beating rain upon the window, the cold, incongruous work that lay before them, added zest to their enjoyment of the meal.\u00a0 With every glass their cordiality increased.\u00a0 Soon Macfarlane handed a little pile of gold to his companion.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018A compliment,\u2019 he said.\u00a0 \u2018Between friends these little d-d accommodations ought to fly like pipe-lights.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Fettes pocketed the money, and applauded the sentiment to the echo.\u00a0 \u2018You are a philosopher,\u2019 he cried.\u00a0 \u2018I was an ass till I knew you.\u00a0 You and K\u2014 between you, by the Lord Harry! but you\u2019ll make a man of me.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Of course we shall,\u2019 applauded Macfarlane.\u00a0 \u2018A man?\u00a0 I tell you, it required a man to back me up the other morning.\u00a0 There are some big, brawling, forty-year-old cowards who would have turned sick at the look of the d-d thing; but not you\u2014you kept your head.\u00a0 I watched you.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Well, and why not?\u2019 Fettes thus vaunted himself.\u00a0 \u2018It was no affair of mine.\u00a0 There was nothing to gain on the one side but disturbance, and on the other I could count on your gratitude, don\u2019t you see?\u2019\u00a0 And he slapped his pocket till the gold pieces rang.<\/span><\/p>\n Macfarlane somehow felt a certain touch of alarm at these unpleasant words.\u00a0 He may have regretted that he had taught his young companion so successfully, but he had no time to interfere, for the other noisily continued in this boastful strain:\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018The great thing is not to be afraid.\u00a0 Now, between you and me, I don\u2019t want to hang\u2014that\u2019s practical; but for all cant, Macfarlane, I was born with a contempt.\u00a0 Hell, God, Devil, right, wrong, sin, crime, and all the old gallery of curiosities\u2014they may frighten boys, but men of the world, like you and me, despise them.\u00a0 Here\u2019s to the memory of Gray!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n It was by this time growing somewhat late.\u00a0 The gig, according to order, was brought round to the door with both lamps brightly shining, and the young men had to pay their bill and take the road.\u00a0 They announced that they were bound for Peebles, and drove in that direction till they were clear of the last houses of the town; then, extinguishing the lamps, returned upon their course, and followed a by-road toward Glencorse.\u00a0 There was no sound but that of their own passage, and the incessant, strident pouring of the rain.\u00a0 It was pitch dark; here and there a white gate or a white stone in the wall guided them for a short space across the night; but for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost groping, that they picked their way through that resonant blackness to their solemn and isolated destination.\u00a0 In the sunken woods that traverse the neighbourhood of the burying-ground the last glimmer failed them, and it became necessary to kindle a match and re-illumine one of the lanterns of the gig.\u00a0 Thus, under the dripping trees, and environed by huge and moving shadows, they reached the scene of their unhallowed labours.<\/span><\/p>\n They were both experienced in such affairs, and powerful with the spade; and they had scarce been twenty minutes at their task before they were rewarded by a dull rattle on the coffin lid.\u00a0 At the same moment Macfarlane, having hurt his hand upon a stone, flung it carelessly above his head.\u00a0 The grave, in which they now stood almost to the shoulders, was close to the edge of the plateau of the graveyard; and the gig lamp had been propped, the better to illuminate their labours, against a tree, and on the immediate verge of the steep bank descending to the stream.\u00a0 Chance had taken a sure aim with the stone.\u00a0 Then came a clang of broken glass; night fell upon them; sounds alternately dull and ringing announced the bounding of the lantern down the bank, and its occasional collision with the trees.\u00a0 A stone or two, which it had dislodged in its descent, rattled behind it into the profundities of the glen; and then silence, like night, resumed its sway; and they might bend their hearing to its utmost pitch, but naught was to be heard except the rain, now marching to the wind, now steadily falling over miles of open country.<\/span><\/p>\n They were so nearly at an end of their abhorred task that they judged it wisest to complete it in the dark.\u00a0 The coffin was exhumed and broken open; the body inserted in the dripping sack and carried between them to the gig; one mounted to keep it in its place, and the other, taking the horse by the mouth, groped along by wall and bush until they reached the wider road by the Fisher\u2019s Tryst.\u00a0 Here was a faint, diffused radiancy, which they hailed like daylight; by that they pushed the horse to a good pace and began to rattle along merrily in the direction of the town.<\/span><\/p>\n They had both been wetted to the skin during their operations, and now, as the gig jumped among the deep ruts, the thing that stood propped between them fell now upon one and now upon the other.\u00a0 At every repetition of the horrid contact each instinctively repelled it with the greater haste; and the process, natural although it was, began to tell upon the nerves of the companions.\u00a0 Macfarlane made some ill-favoured jest about the farmer\u2019s wife, but it came hollowly from his lips, and was allowed to drop in silence.\u00a0 Still their unnatural burden bumped from side to side; and now the head would be laid, as if in confidence, upon their shoulders, and now the drenching sack-cloth would flap icily about their faces.\u00a0 A creeping chill began to possess the soul of Fettes.\u00a0 He peered at the bundle, and it seemed somehow larger than at first.\u00a0 All over the country-side, and from every degree of distance, the farm dogs accompanied their passage with tragic ululations; and it grew and grew upon his mind that some unnatural miracle had been accomplished, that some nameless change had befallen the dead body, and that it was in fear of their unholy burden that the dogs were howling.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018For God\u2019s sake,\u2019 said he, making a great effort to arrive at speech, \u2018for God\u2019s sake, let\u2019s have a light!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Seemingly Macfarlane was affected in the same direction; for, though he made no reply, he stopped the horse, passed the reins to his companion, got down, and proceeded to kindle the remaining lamp.\u00a0 They had by that time got no farther than the cross-road down to Auchenclinny.\u00a0 The rain still poured as though the deluge were returning, and it was no easy matter to make a light in such a world of wet and darkness.\u00a0 When at last the flickering blue flame had been transferred to the wick and began to expand and clarify, and shed a wide circle of misty brightness round the gig, it became possible for the two young men to see each other and the thing they had along with them.\u00a0 The rain had moulded the rough sacking to the outlines of the body underneath; the head was distinct from the trunk, the shoulders plainly modelled; something at once spectral and human riveted their eyes upon the ghastly comrade of their drive.<\/span><\/p>\n For some time Macfarlane stood motionless, holding up the lamp.\u00a0 A nameless dread was swathed, like a wet sheet, about the body, and tightened the white skin upon the face of Fettes; a fear that was meaningless, a horror of what could not be, kept mounting to his brain.\u00a0 Another beat of the watch, and he had spoken.\u00a0 But his comrade forestalled him.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018That is not a woman,\u2019 said Macfarlane, in a hushed voice.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018It was a woman when we put her in,\u2019 whispered Fettes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Hold that lamp,\u2019 said the other.\u00a0 \u2018I must see her face.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n And as Fettes took the lamp his companion untied the fastenings of the sack and drew down the cover from the head.\u00a0 The light fell very clear upon the dark, well-moulded features and smooth-shaven cheeks of a too familiar countenance, often beheld in dreams of both of these young men.\u00a0 A wild yell rang up into the night; each leaped from his own side into the roadway: the lamp fell, broke, and was extinguished; and the horse, terrified by this unusual commotion, bounded and went off toward Edinburgh at a gallop, bearing along with it, sole occupant of the gig, the body of the dead and long-dissected Gray.<\/span><\/p>\n The story, titled “The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson, follows two medical students, Fettes and Macfarlane, who are involved in the illegal trade of obtaining corpses for anatomical study under the guidance of their anatomy professor, Mr. K.<\/span><\/p>\nSummary<\/strong><\/h3>\n