“Read that,” he said, pointing to a flat stone, where every hollow letter was shown in high relief by the growth in it of a lovely moss. The rest of the stone was rich in gray and green and brown lichens, but only in the letters grew the bright moss; the inscription stood as it were in the hand of nature herself--“_He is not here; he is risen._” While Malcolm gazed, trying to think what his master would have him think, the latter resumed. “If he is risen--if the sun is up, Malcolm--then the morning and not the evening is the season for the place of tombs; the morning when the shadows are shortening and separating, not the evening when they are growing all into one. I used to love the churchyard best in the evening, when the past was more to me than the future; now I visit it almost every bright summer morning, and only occasionally at night.” “But, sir, isna deith a dreidfu’ thing?” said Malcolm. “That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate, or as the will of a perfect God. Its obscurity is its dread; but if God be light, then death itself must be full of splendour--a splendour probably too keen for our eyes to receive.” “But there’s the deein’ itsel’: isna that fearsome? It’s _that_ I wad be fleyed at.” “I don’t see why it should be. It’s the want of a God that makes it dreadful, and _you_ will be greatly to blame, Malcolm, if you haven’t found your God by the time you have to die.” They were startled by a gruff voice near them. The speaker was hidden by a corner of the church. “Ay, she’s weel happit (_covered_),” it said. “But a grave never luiks richt wantin’ a stane, an’ her auld cousin wad hear o’ nane bein’ laid ower _her_. I said it micht be set up at her heid, whaur she wad never fin’ the weicht o’ ’t; but na, na! nane o’ ’t for _her_! She’s ane ’at maun tak her ain gait, say the ither thing wha likes.” It was Watty Witherspail who spoke--a thin shaving of a man, with a deep, harsh, indeed startling voice. “An’ what ailed her at a stane?” returned the voice of Jonathan Auldbuird, the sexton. “--Nae doobt it wad be the expense?” “Amna I tellin’ ye what it was? Deil a bit o’ the expense cam intill the calcalation! The auld maiden’s nane sae close as fowk ’at disna ken her wad mak her oot. _I_ ken her weel. She wadna hae a stane laid upon her as gien she wanted to haud her doon, puir thing! She said, says she, ‘The yerd’s eneuch upo’ the tap o’ her, wantin’ that!’” “It micht be some sair, she wad be thinkin’ doobtless, for sic a waik worn cratur to lift whan the trump was blawn,” said the sexton, with the feeble laugh of one who doubts the reception of his wit.