e did himself, taking as long in the telling, and making
the points in exactly the same way. By and by they will come to think
that they themselves were of those past times. Already the young ones
look like contemporaries of their father.

CHAPTER XI

LITTLE RATHIE'S "BURAL"

Devout-under-difficulties would have been the name of Lang Tammas had
he been of Covenanting times. So I thought one wintry afternoon, years
before I went to the schoolhouse, when he dropped in to ask the
pleasure of my company to the farmer of Little Rathie's "bural." As a
good Auld Licht, Tammas reserved his swallow-tail coat and "lum hat"
(chimney pot) for the kirk and funerals; but the coat would have
flapped villainously, to Tammas's eternal ignominy, had he for one rash
moment relaxed his hold on the bottom button, and it was only by
walking sideways, as horses sometimes try to do, that the hat could be
kept at the angle of decorum. Let it not be thought that Tammas had
asked me to Little Rathie's funeral on his own responsibility. Burals
were among the few events to break the monotony of an Auld Licht
winter, and invitations were as much sought after as cards to my lady's
dances in the south. This had been a fair average season for Tammas,
though of his four burials one had been a bairn's--a mere bagatelle;
but had it not been for the death of Little Rathie I would probably not
have been out that year at all.

The small farm of Little Rathie lies two miles from Thrums, and Tammas
and I trudged manfully through the snow, adding to our numbers as we
went. The dress of none differed materially from the precentor's, and
the general effect was of septuagenarians in each other's best clothes,
though living in low-roofed houses had bent most of them before their
time. By a rearrangement of garments, such as making Tammas change
coat, hat, and trousers with Cragiebuckle, Silva McQueen, and Sam'l
Wilkie respectively, a dexterous tailor might perhaps have supplied
each with a "fit." The talk was chiefly of Little Rathie, and
sometimes threatened to become animated, when another mourner would
fall in and restore the more fitting gloom.

"Ay, ay," the new comer would say, by way of responding to the sober
salutation, "Ay, Johnny." Then there was silence, but for the "gluck"
with which we lifted our feet from the slush.

"So Little Rathie's been ta'en awa'," Johnny would venture to say, by
and by.

"He's gone, Johnny; ay, man, h