For various reasons the event of the mock burial was postponed until a night in late June; and then, through the dewy twilight of evening, numerous persons proceeded from Lydford and outlying hamlets to the field known as Thornyside above the river. Many motives took the company, but not one amongst them knew the facts. Certain folk felt interested in the revival of an ancient use; others were only concerned with the excitement of a new thing; and most attended from morbid desire to know what man and woman were to suffer this public denunciation and rebuke. The light waned after nine o'clock, and the dots and clusters of spectators decreased upon the roads and thronged into a black mass about the centre of Jacob Taverner's field. In the midst two graves had been dug, and beside them, on trestles, lay two coffins close together. The lids hid their contents. A rope fastened between stakes ran round to prevent spectators from crowding upon performers. Walter Agg and Peter Lethbridge were among the people. They smoked their pipes, stood at the ring-side, and joked with the men about them. "When be the covers to be lifted, so as we shall see the parties?" asked Lethbridge. Mr. Nathaniel Spry was near and answered. "When the torches are lighted, I believe. The procession comes down from the cowshed over there. It is all to be done in the old way. Mr. Huggins and Mr. Churchward both remember the ceremony in their youth; and they were able to furnish the particulars. Wasn't you, Mr. Churchward?" "I was," said Adam, who stood close at hand. "In my boyhood's days much was done that has been since forgotten. The common people have a rough sense of poetic justice. So has the human race in general. Jarratt Weekes, my son-in-law, asked me to be the minister on this occasion and read the burial service; but I refused, because it was contrary to the dignity of my age or my calling. Moreover, Jarratt will do it himself." "He's the leading spirit, then?" asked Agg. "I am violating no confidence when I answer that he is," replied Adam. "He has an active sense of justice--a thing specially acute in those who are suffering from injustice. I fear we are about to administer a harsh lesson to some erring brother and sister. Yet who shall say it won't be well deserved?" "Perhaps the parties will," suggested Lethbridge; "bound to come as an ugly shock to them, no doubt." "You are quite right, my man," declared Nathaniel Spry. "It is a very tragical thought, isn't it, Mr. Churchward? that the very people themselves may at this moment be laughing and joking by these graves, little knowing that their own effigies are lying within a few yards of them in those boxes."