At such crises as these "th' women foak," as he called his wife and Janey, derived their greatest consolation from much going to chapel. "If it wur na fur th' bit o' comfort I get theer," said the poor woman, "I should na know whether I wur standin' on my head or my heels--betwixt him, an' th' work, an' th' childer." "Happen ye'd loike to go wi' us," said Janey to Murdoch, one day. "Yo'll be sure to hear a good sermont." Murdoch went with them, and sat in a corner of their free seat--a hard one, with a straight and unrelenting back. But he was not prevented by the seat from being interested and even absorbed by the doctrine. He had an absent-minded way of absorbing impressions, and the unemotional tenor of his life had left him singularly impartial. He did not finally decide that the sermon was good, bad, or indifferent, but he pondered on it and its probable effects deeply, and with no little curiosity. It was a long sermon, and one which "hit straight from the shoulder." It displayed a florid heaven and a burning hell. It was literal, and well garnished with telling and scriptural quotations. Once or twice during its delivery Murdoch glanced at Janey and Mrs. Briarley. The woman, during intervals of eager pacifying of the big baby, lifted her pale face and listened devoutly. Janey sat respectable and rigorous, her eyes fixed upon the pulpit, her huge shawl folded about her, her bonnet slipping backward at intervals, and requiring to be repeatedly rearranged by a smart hustling somewhere in the region of the crown. The night was very quiet when they came out into the open air. The smoke-clouds of the day had been driven away by a light breeze, and the sky was bright with stars. Mrs. Briarley and the ubiquitous baby joined a neighbor and hastened home, but Murdoch and Janey lingered a little. "My father is buried here," Murdoch had said, and Janey had answered with sharp curiousness,-- "Wheer's th' place? I'd loike to see it. Has tha getten a big head-stone up?" She was somewhat disappointed to find there was none, and that nothing but the sod covered the long mound, but she appeared to comprehend the state of affairs at once. "I s'pose tha'lt ha' one after a bit," she said, "when tha'rt not so short as tha art now. Ivverybody's short i' these toimes." She seated herself upon the stone coping of the next grave, her elbow on her knee, a small, weird figure in the uncertain light. "I allus did loike a big head-stone," she remarked, reflectively. "Theer's summat noice about a big white un wi' black letters on it. I loike a white un th' best, an' ha' th' letters cut deep, an' th' name big, an' a bit o' poitry at th' eend: 'Stranger, a moment linger near, An' hark to th' one as moulders here; Thy bones, loike mine, shall rot i' th' ground, Until th' last awful trumpet's sound; Thy flesh, loike mine, fa' to decay, For mon is made to pass away.'