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There was a thin, bright moonshine; it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded the noise and business of the day. The ghouls had come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone.

Stevenson employs the imagery of the night to emphasize the darkness of deeds being carried out as the body snatchers bring Jane Galbraith’s body to Fettes. The slight light from the moon suggests how Fettes is still at least partially in the figurative light of morality. The men, described as ghouls, bring the body later than usual, suggestive of the witching hour before dawn which is ascribed to a time when supernatural events take place. This is appropriate for the story since this particular night is when Fettes begins his transformation into a man who can overlook murder. The coldness of the night furthers this insight into Fettes’s character since he is developing a coldness of heart that will allow him to accept Macfarlane’s advice and accept the fact that their laboratory has been supplied with murder victims all along. Confronted with proof and deciding to live with it rather than fight it reveals that Fettes has a dark and cold soul that allows him to go on without taking any action.

It stood then, as now, upon a cross road . . . the stir of the wind in mountainous old flowering chestnuts, and once in seven days the voice of the bell and the old tunes of the precentor, were the only sounds that disturbed the silence around the rural church.

Fettes and Macfarlane’s final trip together to rob a grave begins with a lovely daylight setting. The pastoral landscape with the sound of sheep, a babbling stream, wind in the trees, a church bell, and hymns provides a sharp juxtaposition to the previous scenes that take place in the dark of night with the presence of decaying bodies and the ghoulish men who deliver them. The beauty of the landscape suggests all that is good in the natural world. The fact that the church with the cemetery the men plan to desecrate stands at a crossroad is an important element of the setting. The image is symbolic of the fact that the two men face an existential choice. When confronted with the supernatural appearance of Gray’s body instead of the farmer’s wife they dug up, they must choose a path. Since Fettes later says that he threw away all the gold Macfarlane gave him and since he appeared in Debenham as a young man, it’s clear that his choice was to abandon the criminal path he was on. It's implied that Macfarlane, however, took the other route at the spiritual crossroad and continued his immoral and unethical behavior.

It was pitch dark . . . for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost groping, that they picked their way through that resonant blackness to their solemn and isolated destination.  In the sunken woods that traverse the neighbourhood of the burying-ground the last glimmer failed them.

The darkness in the cemetery scene is an important element of the setting. Just as Fettes and Macfarlane have abandoned any conscience or ethics, so too has the light abandoned them. The black night mirrors the darkness of the two men’s souls as they go about the business of exhuming a woman’s body and stealing it with no hesitation. There is a marked difference between the beautiful landscape they saw as they approached the churchyard and the sinister darkness of the night during which they go about their business. The isolation of the place signifies how they are separated from the rest of humanity as well as how they are alone in the decisions they will ultimately make. When the two men do finally re-light the lamp to look at the body, the light suggests the illumination of who they truly are, leading to the final action of Fettes fleeing, never to return.

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