Moredock stared. "Why, you--" "Hush!" said the doctor sternly. "Now, what are you going to do--stay and assist me, or go? If you have the slightest nervous dread, pray leave me at once." "Nay, I'm not skeared, doctor," said the old man grimly. "I've seen too much o' this sort o' thing. I was a bit frightened when I saw that head going along through the church without the body, but I'm not feared of this." "Stop, then, and help," said the doctor. "I'll pay you well. Can you use a screw-driver?" Moredock chuckled and took off his coat, which he hung upon one of the ornamental handles of an old coffin foot. Then rolling up his shirt-sleeves over his thin, sinewy arms, he took up a screw-driver--one that he had brought--and as deftly as a carpenter began removing the screws from the handsome coffin-lid. As Moredock attacked the head, the doctor busied himself at the foot, with the result that in a few minutes the screws were all laid together upon the stone ledge at the side of the vault, and the coffin-lid, with its engraved breast-plate, setting forth the name, age, and date, was lifted up, and stood on end out of the way. "What will be the best way of opening this?" said the doctor, as he held the lamp over the gleaming lead inner coffin, with its diamond pattern and silvery-looking solder marks along the sides. "Had we better melt the solder?" "Melt the sawder?" said Moredock, with a chuckle. "I'll show you a trick worth two of that." He went to where his coat hung, and took out of one of the pockets a short, curved, chisel-looking tool with a keen point and a stout handle. "There, doctor, that's the jockey for this job. Want it right open?" "Yes; I want the lid right off. Can you manage it?" "Can I manage it!" chuckled the old man derisively. "Look!" Strange thoughts invaded the doctor's breast as to what at different times had been the pursuits of the old sexton, as he saw him take the singular-looking tool, place its point at the extreme right-hand corner of the leaden coffin, place his shoulder against the butt of the handle, and press down, when the point penetrated the thin lead at once, right over the top of the curved blade. The rest was simple, for the old man only worked the handle up and down close to the side where, acting as a lever, the curved steel cut through the metal with the greatest ease, an inch slit at a time, so that in a very few minutes the top corner was reached. Then the head was cut across, and the old man paused to go back to the foot and cut across there. "Why didn't you continue cutting round?" said the doctor, speaking in a low, subdued tone. "You let me be, doctor," said Moredock, with an unpleasant laugh. "If it was a leg, I shouldn't say naught, but let you do it. This is more in my way. Look here."