As the mourners "skailed" slowly away from the kirkyaird in twos and threes, there was wonderment as to who should have the property, for which the late laird and minister had cared so little. There were very various opinions; but one thing was quite universally admitted, that there would be no such easy terms in the matter of rent and arrears as there had been in the time of "him that's awa'." The snow swept down with a biting swirl as the groups scattered and the mourners vanished from each other's sight, diving singly into the eddying drifts as into a great tent of many flapping folds. Grave and quiet is the Scottish funeral, with a kind of simple manfulness as of men in the presence of the King of Terrors, but yet possessing that within them which enables every man of them to await without unworthy fear the Messenger who comes but once. On the whole, not so sad as many things that are called mirthful. So the last Anderson of Deeside, and the best of all their ancient line, was gathered to his fathers in an equal sleep that snowy January morning. There were two inches of snow in the grave when they laid the coffin in. As Saunders said, "Afore auld Elec could get him happit, his Maister had hidden him like Moses in a windin'-sheet o' His ain." In the morning, when Elec went hirpling into the kirkyaird, he found at the grave-head a bare place which the snow had not covered. Then some remembered that, hurrying by in the rapidly darkening gloaming of the night after the funeral, they had seen some one standing immovable by the minister's grave in the thickly drifting snow. They had wondered why he should stand there on such a bitter night. There were those who said that it was just the lad Archibald Grier, gone to stand a while by his benefactor's grave. But Daft Jess was of another opinion. II A SCOTTISH SABBATH DAY "_On this day Men consecrate their souls, As did their fathers_." * * * * * _And ah! the sacred morns that crowned the week-- The path betwixt the mountains and the sea, The Sannox water and the wooden bridge, The little church, the narrow seats--and we That through the open window saw the ridge Of Fergus, and the peak Of utmost Cior Mohr--nor held it wrong, When vext with platitude and stirless air, To watch the mist-wreaths clothe the rock-scarps bare And in the pauses hear the blackbird's song_. "_Memory Harvest_." I. THE BUIK Walter Carmichael often says in these latter days that his life owed much of its bent to his first days of the week at Drumquhat.