Not so Duncan MacPhail, who, notwithstanding the more than half Pagan character of his ideas, had too much reverence to mock at anything in the form of religion, to all the claims of which he was even eager to assent: when the duty of forgiveness was pressed upon him too hard, he would take his last refuge in excepting to the authority of the messenger. He regarded the announcement of the meeting with the greater respect that the man from Stornoway was a MacLeod, and so of his mother’s clan. It was now the end of August, when the sky is of a paler blue in the day time, and greener about the sunset. The air had in it a touch of cold, which, like as a faint acid affects a sweet drink, only rendered the warmth more pleasant. On the appointed morning, the tide was low, and the waves died gently upon the sand, seeming to have crept away from the shore to get nearer to the sunrise. Duncan was walking along the hard wet sand towards the promontory, with Mr Graham on one side of him and Malcolm on the other. There was no gun to fire this morning; it was Sunday, and all might repose undisturbed: the longer sleep in bed, possibly the shorter in church. “I wish you had your sight but for a moment, Mr MacPhail,” said the schoolmaster. “How this sunrise would make you leap for joy.” “Ay!” said Malcolm, “it wad gar daddy grip till ’s pipes in twa hurries.” “And what should she’ll pe wanting her pipes for?” asked Duncan. “To praise God wi’,” answered Malcolm. “Ay; ay;” murmured Duncan thoughtfully. “Tey are tat.” “What are they?” asked Mr Graham gently. “For to praise Cod,” answered Duncan solemnly. “I almost envy you,” returned Mr Graham, “when I think how you will praise God one day. What a glorious waking you will have!” “Ten it’ll pe your opinion, Mr Craham, tat she’ll pe sleeping her sound sleep, and not pe lying wite awake in her coffin all ta time?” “A good deal better than that, Mr MacPhail!” returned the schoolmaster cheerily. “It’s my opinion that you are, as it were, asleep now, and that the moment you die, you will feel as if you had just woke up, and for the first time in your life. For one thing, you will see far better then than any of us do now.” But poor Duncan could not catch the idea; his mind was filled with a preventing fancy. “Yes; I know; at ta tay of chutchment,” he said. “Put what’ll pe ta use of ketting her eyes open pefore she’ll pe up? How should she pe seeing with all ta earth apove her--and ta cravestone too tat I know my poy Malcolm will pe laying on ta top of his old cranfather to keep him waarm, and let peoples pe know tat ta plind piper will be lying town pelow wite awake and fery uncomfortable?” “Excuse me, Mr MacPhail, but that’s all a mistake,” said Mr Graham positively. “The body is but a sort of shell that we cast off when we die, as the corn casts off its husk when it begins to grow. The life of the seed comes up out of the earth in a new body, as St Paul says,----”