In order that the charge brought against Doctor Rowel, of having been guilty of the murder of Lawyer Skinwell, might if possible be clearly substantiated, Mr. Lupton had not omitted any means at all likely to conduce towards that end; not the least important of which was the disinterment of the deceased's coffin from its grave, in the churchyard of Bramleigh, where it had been laid. This curious operation was undertaken with as much quietness as such an unusual piece of business can reasonably be supposed to have been performed; and a careful examination would, doubtless, have taken place in the porch of the church, had it not been soon discovered, to everybody's amazement, on opening the grave, that somebody had been there before, and the corpse was gone. This fact was no sooner ascertained than speculations innumerable, and of every variety, started into existence with the suddenness of a batch of summer flies; and strange stories were published, which had never so much as been dreamed of before, by the very parties who now gave instant birth to them, of dim lights having been seen, or supposed to have been seen, in the churchyard after dark; of something like the sound of a spade having been once heard there in the dead of night,--though, when heard, or what favoured mortal had heard it, could not precisely be made out:--as well as of suspicious looking strangers having, at one time, been observed staring over the yard wall, as though marking in the mind's eye some spot which was destined to become the scene of future dark and mysterious operations.