dozen men drew near from the opposite direction,
bearing on poles the remains of Tammas Lunan in a closed coffin. The
coffin was brought to within thirty yards of those who awaited it, and
then roughly lowered to the ground. Its bearers rested morosely on
their poles. In conveying Lunan's remains to the borders of his own
parish they were only conforming to custom; but Thrums and Tilliedrum
differed as to where the boundary-line was drawn, and not a foot would
either advance into the other's territory. For half a day the coffin
lay unclaimed, and the two parties sat scowling at each other. Neither
dared move. Gloaming had stolen into the valley when Dite Deuchars of
Tilliedrum rose to his feet and deliberately spat upon the coffin. A
stone whizzed through the air; and then the ugly spectacle was
presented, in the grey night, of a dozen mutes fighting with their
poles over a coffin. There was blood on the shoulders that bore
Tammas's remains to Thrums.

After that meeting Tilliedrum lived for the Fast Day. Never, perhaps,
was there a community more given up to sin, and Thrums felt "called" to
its chastisement. The insult to Lunan's coffin, however, dispirited
their weavers for a time, and not until the suicide of Pitlums did they
put much fervour into their prayers. It made new men of them.
Tilliedrum's sins had found it out. Pitlums was a farmer in the parish
of Thrums, but he had been born at Tilliedrum; and Thrums thanked
Providence for that, when it saw him suspended between two hams from
his kitchen rafters. The custom was to cart suicides to the quarry at
the Galla pond and bury them near the cairn that had supported the
gallows; but on this occasion not a farmer in the parish would lend a
cart, and for a week the corpse lay on the sanded floor as it had been
cut down--an object of awe-struck interest to boys who knew no better
than to peep through the darkened window. Tilliedrum bit its lips at
home. The Auld Licht minister, it was said, had been approached on the
subject; but, after serious consideration, did not see his way to
offering up a prayer. Finally old Hobart and two others tied a rope
round the body, and dragged it from the farm to the cairn, a distance
of four miles. Instead of this incident's humbling Tilliedrum into
attending church, the next Fast Day saw its streets deserted. As for
the Thrums Auld Lichts, only heavy wobs prevented their walking erect
like men who had done their d