Incapable of carrying the monstrous corpse, no matter where encountered, he is forced to dig the grave where the body lies.
This obligatory place of sepulture may be in stony soil; it may occupy this or that bare spot, or some other where the grass, especially the couch-grass, plunges into the ground its inextricable network of little cords.

There is a great probability, too, that a bristle of stunted brambles may support the body at some inches from the soil.

Slung by the labourers' spade, which has just broken his back, the Mole falls here, there, anywhere, at random; and where the body falls, no matter what the obstacles--provided they be not insurmountable--there the undertaker must utilize it.
The difficulties of inhumation are capable of such variety as causes us already to foresee that the Necrophorus cannot employ fixed methods in the accomplishment of his labours.

Exposed to fortuitous hazards, he must be able to modify his tactics within the limits of his modest perceptions.

To saw, to break, to disentangle, to lift, to shake, to displace: these are so many methods of procedure which are indispensable to the grave-digger in a predicament.