d page to call them great,
A wider space, an ornamented grave?
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave.

BYRON.

The funeral obsequies being over, the same flotilla which had proceeded
in solemn and sad array down the lake prepared to return with displayed
banners, and every demonstration of mirth and joy; for there was but
brief time to celebrate festivals when the awful conflict betwixt the
Clan Quhele and their most formidable rivals so nearly approached. It
had been agreed, therefore, that the funeral feast should be blended
with that usually given at the inauguration of the young chief.

Some objections were made to this arrangement, as containing an evil
omen. But, on the other hand, it had a species of recommendation, from
the habits and feelings of the Highlanders, who, to this day, are wont
to mingle a degree of solemn mirth with their mourning, and something
resembling melancholy with their mirth. The usual aversion to speak
or think of those who have been beloved and lost is less known to this
grave and enthusiastic race than it is to others. You hear not only the
young mention (as is everywhere usual) the merits and the character of
parents, who have, in the course of nature, predeceased them; but the
widowed partner speaks, in ordinary conversation, of the lost spouse,
and, what is still stranger, the parents allude frequently to the beauty
or valour of the child whom they have interred. The Scottish Highlanders
appear to regard the separation of friends by death as something less
absolute and complete than it is generally esteemed in other countries,
and converse of the dear connexions who have sought the grave before
them as if they had gone upon a long journey in which they themselves
must soon follow. The funeral feast, therefore, being a general custom
throughout Scotland, was not, in the opinion of those who were to share
it, unseemingly mingled, on the present occasion, with the festivities
which hailed the succession to the chieftainship.

The barge which had lately borne the dead to the grave now conveyed
the young MacIan to his new command and the minstrels sent forth their
gayest notes to gratulate Eachin's succession, as they had lately
sounded their most doleful dirges when carrying Gilchrist to his grave.
From the attendant flotilla rang notes of triumph and jubilee, instead
of those yells of lamentation which had so lately disturbed the echoes
of Lo