awoke from a sudden noise outside. It
was November, and there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was _in statu
quo_; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew it, but never moved. I
looked out; and there, at the gate, in the dim morning--for the sun was
not up--was Jess and the cart,--a cloud of steam rising from the old
mare. I did not see James; he was already at the door, and came up the
stairs, and met me. It was less than three hours since he left, and he
must have posted out--who knows how?--to Howgate, full nine miles off;
yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. He had an armful of
blankets, and was streaming with perspiration. He nodded to me, spread
out on the floor two pairs of clean old blankets having at their
corners, "A.G., 1794," in large letters in red worsted. These were the
initials of Alison Graeme, and James may have looked in at her from
without--himself unseen but not unthought of--when he was "wat, wat, and
weary," and after having walked many a mile over the hills, may have
seen her sitting, while "a' the lave were sleepin':" and by the
firelight working her name on the blankets, for her ain James's bed.

He motioned Rab down, and taking his wife in his arms, laid her in the
blankets, and happed her carefully and firmly up, leaving the face
uncovered; and then lifting her, he nodded again sharply to me, and with
a resolved but utterly miserable face, strode along the passage, and
down-stairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a light; but he didn't
need it. I went out, holding stupidly the candle in my hand in the calm
frosty air; we were soon at the gate. I could have helped him, but I saw
he was not to be meddled with, and he was strong, and did not need it.
He laid her down as tenderly, as safely, as he had lifted her out ten
days before--as tenderly as when he had her first in his arms when she
was only "A.G.,"--sorted her, leaving that beautiful sealed face open to
the heavens; and then taking Jess by the head, he moved away. He did not
notice me, neither did Rab, who presided behind the cart.

I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the College, and
turned up Nicolson Street. I heard the solitary cart sound through the
streets, and die away and come again; and I returned, thinking of that
company going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, the morning
light touching the Pentlands and making them like on-looking ghosts,
then down the hill through Auchindinny woods, pa