ed the procession,
"an' they luved ane anither weel."

The black thread wound itself along the whiteness of the Glen, the
coffin first, with his lordship and Drumsheugh behind, and the others as
they pleased, but in closer ranks than usual, because the snow on either
side was deep, and because this was not as other funerals. They could
see the women standing at the door of every house on the hillside, and
weeping, for each family had some good reason in forty years to remember
MacLure. When Bell Baxter saw Saunders alive, and the coffin of the
doctor that saved him on her man's shoulder, she bowed her head on the
dyke, and the bairns in the village made such a wail for him they loved
that the men nearly disgraced themselves.

"A'm gled we're through that, at ony rate," said Hillocks; "he wes awfu'
taen up wi' the bairns, conseederin' he hed nane o' his ain."

There was only one drift on the road between his cottage and the
kirkyard, and it had been cut early that morning. Before daybreak
Saunders had roused the lads in the bothy, and they had set to work by
the light of lanterns with such good will that, when Drumsheugh came
down to engineer a circuit for the funeral, there was a fair passage,
with walls of snow twelve feet high on either side.

[Illustration.]

"Man, Saunders," he said, "this wes a kind thocht, and rael weel dune."

But Saunders' only reply was this: "Mony a time he's hed tae gang
round; he micht as weel hae an open road for his last traivel."

[Illustration: "STANDING AT THE DOOR"]

When the coffin was laid down at the mouth of the grave, the only
blackness in the white kirkyard, Tammas Mitchell did the most beautiful
thing in all his life. He knelt down and carefully wiped off the snow
the wind had blown upon the coffin, and which had covered the name,
and when he had done this he disappeared behind the others, so that
Drumsheugh could hardly find him to take a cord. For these were the
eight that buried Dr. MacLure--Lord Kilspindie at the head as landlord
and Drumsheugh at his feet as his friend; the two ministers of the
parish came first on the right and left; then Burnbrae and Hillocks of
the farmers, and Saunders and Tammas for the plowmen. So the Glen he
loved laid him to rest.

When the bedrel had finished his work and the turf had been spread, Lord
Kilspindie spoke:

"Friends of Drumtochty, it would not be right that we should part in
silence and no man say what is in every heart.