And they sat down by the coffin, and stared at each other and at the dead beauty, lost in deep cogitation as to what they should do. Their thoughts both took the same direction. “What is to pe done?” muttered they both at the same instant. “We cannot inform, and we cannot take the pody to Custaphus,” again said Donald; “for that would tiscover us.” “To pe surely na,” said Angus; “put we can pury her, cannot we, Tonald?” “Ay, that we can,” answered the latter; “and that we will, too, as surely as my grandmother was puried in the houf o’ Kepplemechan.” “Ay, or as mine was puried in Fochapers kirkyard,” rejoined Angus; “but we maun let the nicht fa’ first, or it may pe said that we were the murterers o’ the puir cratur. Ochone! put this is a tam pad world. We maun hae a quaich to keep up oor courage.” And so they set about preparing themselves for the work they had in prospect, by drinking of their own spirits by the side of the coffin; every now and then looking in the face of Julia, and lamenting the unhappy fate of their former visiter, with whom they had drunk many a good bumper, and enjoyed much good fun and frolic. In this occupation, and exchanging many a comely sentiment on the wickedness of man, and the shortness and uncertainty of human life, they passed several hours, until it should be dark enough for the purpose of interring Julia in reality, which they would execute as surely as ever mortal was consigned to dust. They had drunk till their eyes began to reel in their heads, and till tears of mawkish and drunken sentimentality were dropping on the face of their merry boon companion, as she lay in her bier. A toast of exquisite pathos—“Here’s to the good cratur’s soul then!” had just escaped from Donald’s lips, when Julia opened her eyes, and, altogether unconscious where she lay, obeyed the first impulse of her wakening heart, by holding out her hand, and asking for a glass of the whisky which she saw them drinking with so much good will. Twenty ghosts in their winding sheets could not have produced a greater sensation; for the two Highlanders threw from them their quaichs, and, starting to their feet, flew, with a scream of terror that might have been heard upon the surface of the earth itself, into the farthest recesses of the dark abode.