I saw the lightning swoop down upon the moorland. I caught a glimpse of a man running as one blinded--his hands above his head to protect himself--vaguely through the inky peat-hags. Then I turned to look on Sandie who was also gazing into the darkness--his face like the archangel Michael's. I had not yet found my voice, and could not speak for tension, when I heard a foolish titter from the girl beside me who was suddenly overcome with laughter. '_Tee hee_,' she went, '_tee hee! What a funny face Tom had on him. Tee hee!_' Then I heard a voice from the bed speaking composedly. 'Ay, I aye kenned he'd murdered puir Jeannie. Whaur wast ye fund my puir lassie?' she asked Sandie. As Sandie replied to her I looked at the fearful figure of the shrouded corpse that sat upright facing the doorway, whence his son-in-law had fled, and wondered if there could be any spark of life left within. As I looked the composed voice spoke again, 'Dinna be fieyed! Puir Ephraim's been _ill-steekit_. It's twa-three days since the doctor certifiedst him; noo his muscles hae stiffened and raxed him up. Ye mun lay him doon again, Maisters, for I'll no can sleep wi' him glowering that gate.' The speaker in the night mutch was the only one of us who seemed unaffected by the extraordinary events we had just witnessed. Her eyes gleamed a trifle more brightly than before. That was the only difference. I looked at Sandie in dismay at the task assigned to us, but he had risen, and now beckoned me to the coffin side. Handling the poor corpse as reverently as we could we found it very difficult to re-confine it to its resting-place, for the muscles had turned so stiff and rigid that we had to exert force, and seek heavy stones from outside to keep the lid shut down securely. This done, and the door fastened against the return of the fugitive, at the old woman's command, though I felt sure in my own mind that the man would never come back again of his own accord, Sandie and I took the battered sconce and dying wick and went up to the bedroom above. We sat upon the bed, smoked another pipe and conversed about the soul-stirring incidents we had just been witnesses of. 'Do you remember,' asked Sandie, 'the mediaeval legend of the dead man's wounds bleeding afresh in the presence of his murderer? I believe that the spirit of the dead man down below us must have been moved by the presence of his daughter's murderer.' 'To think of our having come across in such a mysterious and fortuitous way the poor daughter--Jean!' I said, occupied by another aspect of these extraordinary occurrences. As we smoked and talked thus our dip went out, which was an intimation that we had better try to sleep.