grief of a father and a mother can only be
conceived by them who, as fathers and mothers, have suffered the loss of
their bairns,--a treasure more precious to nature than silver or gold,
home to the land-sick sailor, or daylight to the blind man sitting
beaking in the heat of the morning sun.

The coffin having been ordered to be got ready with all haste, two men
brought it on their shoulders betimes on the following morning; and it
was a sight that made my blood run cold to see the dead corpse of poor
Mungo, my own prentice, hoisted up from the bed, and laid in his black-
handled, narrow housie. All had taken their last looks, the lid was
screwed down by means of screw-drivers, and I read the plate, which said,
"Mungo Glen, aged 15." Alas! early was he cut off from among the
living--a flower snapped in its spring blossom--and an awful warning to
us all, sinful and heedless mortals, of the uncertainty of this state of
being.

In the course of the forenoon, Maister Glen's cart was brought to the
door, drawn by two black horses with long tails and hairy feet, a tram
one and a leader. Though the job shook my nerves, I could not refuse to
give them a hand down the stair with the coffin, which had a fief-like
smell of death and sawdust; and we got it fairly landed in the cart,
among clean straw. I saw the clodhapper of a ploughman aye dighting his
een with the sleeve of his big-coat.

The mother, Mistress Glen, a little fattish woman, and as fine a homely
body as ye ever met with, but sorely distracted at this time by sorrow,
sat at the head, with her bonnet drawn over her face, and her shawl
thrown across her shoulders, being a blue and red spot on a white ground.
It was a dismal-like-looking thing to see her sitting there, with the
dead body of her son at her feet; and, at the side of it, his kist with
his claes, on the top of which was tied--not being room for it in the
inside like, (for he had twelve shirts, and three pair of trowsers, and a
Sunday and everyday's coat, with stockings and other things)--his old
white beaver hat, turned up behind, which he used to wear when he was
with me. His Sunday's hat I did not see; but most likely it was in among
his claes, to keep it from the rain, and preserved, no doubt, for the use
of some of his little brothers, please God, when they grew up a wee
bigger.

Seeing Maister Glen, who had cut his chin in shaving, in a worn-out
disjasket state, mounted on his sheltie, I sho