ts being tendered to the old gentleman, who was sitting
silent in his arm-chair, he abruptly exclaimed, in a most discordant
voice, "Hey! what's a' this wastery for?"--and ere an answer could be
returned his jaw dropped, his eyes fixed, and the Laird of Glenfern
ceased to breathe!

CHAPTER XXVI.

"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to
make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless. Hence it is
that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming
knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."--_All's
Well that ends Well_.

ALL attempts to reanimate the lifeless form proved unavailing; and the
horror and consternation that reigned in the castle of Glenfern may be
imagined, but cannot be described. There is perhaps no feeling of our
nature so vague, so complicated, so mysterious, as that with which we
look upon the cold remains of our fellow-mortals. The dignity with which
death invests even the meanest of his victims inspires us with an awe no
living thing can create. The monarch on his throne is less awful than the
beggar in his shroud. The marble features--the powerless hand--the
stiffened limbs--oh! who can contemplate these with feelings that can be
defined? These are the mockery of all our hopes and fears, our fondest
love our fellest hate. Can it be that we now shrink with horror from the
touch of that hand which but yesterday was fondly clasped in our own? Is
that tongue, whose accents even now dwell in our ear, forever chained in
the silence of death? These black and heavy eyelids, are they for ever
to seal up in darkness the eyes whose glance no earthly power could
restrain? And the spirit which animated the clay, where is it now? Is it
wrapt in bliss, or dissolved in woe? Does it witness our grief, and
share our sorrows? Or is the mysterious tie that linked it with
mortality forever broken? And the remembrance of earthly scenes, are
they indeed to the enfranchised spirit as the morning dream, or the dew
upon the early flower? Reflections such as these naturally arise in
every breast. Their influence is felt, though their import cannot always
be expressed. The principle is in all the same, however it may differ in
its operations.

In the family assembled round the lifeless form that had so long been
the centre of their domestic circle, grief showed itself under various
forms. The calm and manly sorrow of the son; the saint-like fe