Thus, however difficult or delicate the moral impediments that required to be overcome, the physical parts of the contract were of easy management. The coffining was made a little ceremony, performed in presence of some of the neighbours. There would be tears, no doubt, if not an Irish howl, and the louder perhaps the greater the bribe; and in the evening a bag of tanners' bark supplied the place of the friend of the many virtues discoursed of at the wake. Nor was there less care taken in carrying this box of bark to the Canongate burying-ground than was displayed by "Merry-Andrew" in conveying the _surrogatum_ to Surgeon's Square; but, of course, there would be a difference in the speed of the respective bearers. Taking all these details into account, we can scarcely deny that these men wrought harder for their money than if they had pursued a regular calling. But, then, they liked it. Even after the bargain for the living invalid was struck, how many anxious watchings at a wynd-end were to exhaust the weary hours before the spirit took wing from the sold body! The gaunt figure of Merrylees, as he jerked his lank muscles and threw his face into the old contortions, might be seen there, but none would know what this meant. One night, a student who saw him standing at a close-end, and suspected that his friend was watching his prey, whispered in his ear, "She's dead," and, aided by the darkness, escaped. In a moment after, "Merry-Andrew" shot down the wynd, and, opening the door, pushed his lugubrious face into a house. "It's a' owre I hear," said he, in a loud whisper; "and when will we come for the body?" "Whisht, ye mongrel," replied the old harridan who acted as nurse; "she's as lively as a cricket." A statement which, though whispered in the unction of secresy, and with most evident sincerity, Merrylees doubted, under a suspicion that the woman's conscience had come between her and the love of money; and, jerking himself forward to the bed, he threw the shadow of his revolting countenance over the face of the terrified invalid, enough of itself to have sent the hovering spirit to its destination, whether above or below. Not a word was spoken by the victim. She had heard enough to rouse terror sufficient to deprive her of speech, if not of breath; and all that the ogre witnessed was the pair of eyes lighted up with the parting rays of the fluttering spirit, and peering mysteriously as if into his very soul.