horror stole over him.

A faint whistle came shrill and clear over the moor, and he saw a
figure approaching at a swinging trot, with a zig-zag course, hopping
now here and now there, as men do over a surface where one has need to
choose their steps. Through the jungle of reeds and bulrushes in the
foreground this figure advanced; and with the same unaccountable
impulse that had coerced him in his dream, he answered the whistle of
the advancing figure.

On that signal it directed its course straight toward him. It mounted
the low wall, and, standing there, looked into the graveyard.

"Who med answer?" challenged the new-comer from his post of
observation.

"Me," answered Tom.

"Who are you?" repeated the man upon the wall.

"Tom Chuff; and who's this grave cut for?" He answered in a savage
tone, to cover the secret shudder of his panic.

"I'll tell you that, ye villain!" answered the stranger, descending
from the wall, "I a' looked for you far and near, and waited long, and
now you're found at last."

Not knowing what to make of the figure that advanced upon him, Tom
Chuff recoiled, stumbled, and fell backward into the open grave. He
caught at the sides as he fell, but without retarding his fall.

An hour later, when lights came with the coffin, the corpse of Tom
Chuff was found at the bottom of the grave. He had fallen direct upon
his head, and his neck was broken. His death must have been
simultaneous with his fall. Thus far his dream was accomplished.

It was his brother-in-law who had crossed the moor and approached the
churchyard of Shackleton, exactly in the line which the image of his
father had seemed to take in his strange vision. Fortunately for Jack
Everton, the sexton and clerk of Shackleton church were, unseen by
him, crossing the churchyard toward the grave of Nelly Chuff, just as
Tom the poacher stumbled and fell. Suspicion of direct violence would
otherwise have inevitably attached to the exasperated brother. As it
was, the catastrophe was followed by no legal consequences.

The good vicar kept his word, and the grave of Tom Chuff is still
pointed out by the old inhabitants of Shackleton pretty nearly in the
centre of the churchyard. This conscientious compliance with the
entreaty of the panic-stricken man as to the place of his sepulture
gave a horrible and mocking emphasis to the strange combination by
which fate had defeated his precaution, and fixed the place of his
death.

The story