g and stretching
himself; Major Dugald ducking his head and darting his glance about from
side to side looking for the enemy; Mr. Spencer, tall, thin, with the
new strapped breeches and a London hat, blowing his nose with much noise
in a Barcelona silk handkerchief. All the way before them the crowd went
straggling down in blacks with as much hurry as the look of the thing
would permit, to reach the schoolhouse where the Paymaster had laid out
the last service of meat and drink for the mourners. The tide was out;
a sandy beach strewn with stones and clumps of seaweed gave its saline
odour to the air; lank herons came sweeping down from the trees over
Croitivile, and stalked about the water's edge. There was only one sound
in nature beyond the soughing of the wind in the shrubbery of the Duke's
garden, it was the plaintive call of a curlew as it flew over the stable
park. A stopped and stagnant world, full of old men and old plaints, the
dead of the yard behind, the solemn and sleepy town before.

The boy was the only person left in the rear of the Paymaster and his
friends; he was standing on the bridge, fair in the middle of the way.
Though the Paymaster cried he was not heard, so he walked back and up to
the boy while the others went on their way to the schoolhouse, where old
Brooks the dominie was waiting among the jars and oatcakes and funeral
biscuits with currants and carvie in them.

Gilian was standing with the weepers off his cuffs and the crape off his
bonnet; he had divested himself of the hateful things whenever he found
himself alone, and he was listening with a rapt and inexpressive face to
the pensive call of the curlew as it rose over the fields, and the tears
were dropping down his cheeks.

"Oh, _'ille_, what's the matter with you?" asked the Paymaster in
Gaelic, struck that sorrow should so long remain with a child.

Gilian started guiltily, flushed to the nape of his neck and stammered
an explanation or excuse.

"The bird, the bird!" said he, turning and looking at the dolorous piper
of the marsh.

"Man!" said the Paymaster in English, looking whimsically at this
childish expression of surprise. "Man! you're a queer callant too. Are
there no curlews about Ladyfield that you should be in such a wonder at
this one? Just a plain, long-nebbed, useless bird, not worth powder
and shot, very douce in the plumage, and always at the same song like
MacNicol the Major."

The little fellow broke into a st