From the inn, hundreds of the crowd rushed to the church-yard, where they surveyed the newly made grave with shudderings and wonder at the strangeness of the events which had occurred in the course of the day.
The death music, the muffled drums, the black flag, the mournful tolling of the sullen bell, together with the deep grave that lay open before them, appeared rather to resemble the fearful pageant of a gloomy dream, than the reality of incidents that actually passed before their eyes.
Those who came to see the grave departed with heaviness and a sad foreboding of what was about to happen; but fresh crowds kept pouring towards it for the remainder of the day, till the dusky shades of a summer night drove them to their own hearths, and left the church-yard silent.
The appearance of the Dead Boxer's wife in the house where Lamh Laudher resided, confirmed, in its worst sense, that which Nell M'Collum had suggested to him.

It is unnecessary to describe the desolating sweep of passion which a man, who, like him, was the slave of strong resentments, must have suffered.

It was not only from motives of avarice and a natural love of victory that he felt anxious to fight: to these was now added a dreadful certainty that Lamh Laudher was the man in existence who had inflicted on him an injury, for which nothing but the pleasure of crushing him to atoms with his hands, could atone.

The approaching battle therefore, with his direst enemy, was looked upon by the Dead Boxer as an opportunity of glutting his revenge.

When the crowd had dispersed, he called a waiter, and desired him to inquire if his wife had returned.