Nor did the "Spune" need the stimulus of the stolid. He began straight the work,--difficult and arduous to all but such adepts,--puffing, and drawing wind to puff again. "Hush!" said Mowat. "I heard a noise." And the "Spune," who after all was a great coward, stood motionless to listen, but all was so still, even as the dead that lay around, that even the breathing of the men sounded like strong whispers. Then away wrought the reassured again, and anon the screwing, the jerking, the pulling, till at last came the final pull, shewing, in the passing beam, the long white shroud, with what it enveloped, extended on the green turf. At that moment the whole area rang with a shout, something between a roar and a yelp, and looking round they saw, behind a low head-stone, a tall figure in white (of course), with its long arms tossed up as with a sudden fling. The apparition was appalling even to men who had no more faith in ghosts than they had in souls; and just as another toss announced the coming shout, they took to flight, staggering as they flew over the numerous inequalities, but making more speed under the spur of terror than ever they had done under that of mammon. They were gone. And now the apparition, after making some more strange movements, proceeded to take off a white sheet, which he deliberately stuck into the bottom of a coarse bag. Two or three giant steps brought him to the spoiled place of rest. "And you're there, Sarah Merrylees?" he said, in a voice sufficiently hollow for the part he had so recently assumed. "The 'Spune' is without its porridge this time; and shall not man live on the fruit of the earth?"