202 WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



inter the Pedler's corpse was the first care ; for the 

 Monk swore by his patron saint that he would not 

 pass another night with it overground to be made a 

 " mitred abbot." A coffin was forthwith prepared, and 

 with " maimed rites," the murderer was committed 

 to the earth. 



That masses were requisite to purify the scene of 

 slaughter was indisputable — and with the peasants who 

 had flocked from the neighbouring villages, the Monk 

 determined to pass that night in prayer. The blood- 

 stains were removed from the floor — ^the corpse had been 

 laid in consecrated earth — and the office had commenced 

 at midnight, when, suddenly, a rushing noise was heard, 

 as if a mountain-torrent was swollen by the bursting of 

 a thunder-cloud. It passed the herdsman's cabin, 

 while blue lights gleamed through the casement, and 

 thunder pealed above. In a state of desperation, the 

 priest ordered the door to be unclosed, and by the 

 lightning's glare, a herd of red deer were seen tearing 

 up the Pedler's grave ! To look longer in that blue 

 infernal glare was impossible — the door was shut, and 

 the remainder of the night passed in penitential prayer. 



With the first light of morning, the Monk and 

 villagers repaired to the Pedler's grave, and the scene 

 it presented showed that the horrors of the preceding 

 night were no illusion. The earth around was blasted 

 with lightning, and the coffin torn from the tomb, and 

 shattered in a thousand splinters. — The corpse was 

 blackening on the heath, and the expression of the 

 distorted features was more like that of a demon than a 

 man. Not very distant was the grave of his beautiful 

 victim. The garland which the village girls had placed 

 there was fresh and unfaded ; and late as the season 



