on of his
brother's hand.

In the bottom of a sandy hole lay something that had once been human.
The face had suffered severely, and it was unrecognisable; but that was
not required. The snowy hair, the coat of marten, the ventilating cloth,
the hygienic flannel--everything down to the health boots from Messrs.
Dall and Crumbie's, identified the body as that of Uncle Joseph. Only
the forage-cap must have been lost in the convulsion, for the dead man
was bare-headed.

"The poor old beggar!" said John, with a touch of natural feeling; "I
would give ten pounds if we hadn't chivied him in the train!"

But there was no sentiment in the face of Morris as he gazed upon the
dead. Gnawing his nails, with introverted eyes, his brow marked with the
stamp of tragic indignation and tragic intellectual effort, he stood
there silent. Here was a last injustice; he had been robbed while he was
an orphan at school, he had been lashed to a decadent leather business,
he had been saddled with Miss Hazeltine, his cousin had been defrauding
him of the tontine, and he had borne all this, we might almost say, with
dignity, and now they had gone and killed his uncle!

"Here!" he said suddenly, "take his heels, we must get him into the
woods. I'm not going to have anybody find this."

"O, fudge!" said John, "Where's the use?"

"Do what I tell you," spirted Morris, as he took the corpse by the
shoulders. "Am I to carry him myself?"

They were close upon the borders of the wood; in ten or twelve paces
they were under cover; and a little farther back, in a sandy clearing
of the trees, they laid their burthen down, and stood and looked at it
with loathing.

"What do you mean to do?" whispered John.

"Bury him, to be sure!" responded Morris, and he opened his pocket-knife
and began feverishly to dig.

"You'll never make a hand of it with that," objected the other.

"If you won't help me, you cowardly shirk," screamed Morris, "you can go
to the devil!"

"It's the childishest folly," said John; "but no man shall call me a
coward," and he began to help his brother grudgingly.

The soil was sandy and light, but matted with the roots of the
surrounding firs. Gorse tore their hands; and as they baled the sand
from the grave, it was often discoloured with their blood. An hour
passed of unremitting energy upon the part of Morris, of lukewarm help
on that of John; and still the trench was barely nine inches in depth.
Into this the body was rud