ing-ground waved and soughed, and some withered leaves
were swirled round and round, as if by the wind. The company stood a
while to rest, and then they proceeded to open the iron gates of the
burying-ground; but the lock was rusted and would not open. Then they
began to pull down part of the wall, and Duncan thought how angry his
master would be at this, and he raised his voice and shouted and
hallooed to them, but to no purpose. Nobody seemed to hear him. At last
the wall was taken down, and the coffin was lifted over, and just then
the sun broke out, and glinted on a new-made grave; and as they were
laying the coffin in it, it gave way, and disclosed Sir Murdoch himself
in his dead clothes; and then the mist grew so thick, Duncan could see
no more, and how to get home he knew not; but when he entered his own
door he was bathed in sweat, and white as any corpse; and all that he
could say was, that he had seen Castle Dochart's burying.

"The following day," continued the narrator, "he was more composed, and
gave the account you have now heard; and three days after came the
intelligence of my father's death. He had dropped down in a fit that
very evening, when entertaining a large company in honour of his
cousin's marriage; and that day week his funeral passed through
Glenvalloch exactly as described by Duncan M'Crae, with all the
particulars: The gates of the burying-ground could not he opened; part
of the wall was taken down to admit the coffin, which received some
injury, and gave way as they were placing it in the grave."

Even the low-country infidel was silenced by the solemnity of this
story; and soon after the company dispersed, everyone panting to be the
first to circulate the intelligence of Glenfern's death.

But soon--oh, how soon! "dies in human hearts the thought of death!"
Even the paltry detail which death creates serves to detach out minds
from the cause itself. So it was with the family of Glenfern. Their
light did not "shine inward;" and after the first burst of sorrow their
ideas fastened with avidity on all the paraphernalia of affliction. Mr.
Douglas, indeed, found much to do and to direct to be done. The elder
ladies began to calculate how many yards of broad hemming would be
required, and to form a muster-roll of the company; with this
improvement, that it was to be ten times as numerous as the one that had
assembled at the christening; while the young ones busied their
imaginations as to the e