“But speakin’ o’ the grave, sir,” pursued Malcolm, “I wuss ye cud drop a word ’at micht be o’ some comfort to my daddy. It’s plain to me, frae words he lats fa’ noo an’ than, that, instead o’ lea’in’ the warl’ ahint him whan he dees, he thinks to lie smorin’ an’ smocherin’ i’ the mools, clammy an’ weet, but a’ there, an’ trimlin’ at the thocht o’ the suddent awfu’ roar an’ din o’ the brazen trumpet o’ the archangel. I wuss ye wad luik in an’ say something till him some nicht. It’s nae guid mentionin’ ’t to the minister; he wad only gie a lauch an’ gang awa’. An’ gien ye cud jist slide in a word aboot forgiein’ his enemies, sir! I made licht o’ the maitter to Mistress Courthope, ’cause she only maks him waur. She does weel wi’ what the minister pits intill her, but she has little o’ her ain to mix ’t up wi’, an’ sae has but sma’ weicht wi’ the likes o’ my gran’father. Only ye winna lat him think ye called on purpose.” They walked about the churchyard until the sun went down in what Mr Graham called the grave of his endless resurrection--the clouds on the one side bearing all the pomp of his funeral, the clouds on the other all the glory of his uprising; and when now the twilight trembled filmy on the borders of the dark, the master once more seated himself beside the new grave, and motioned to Malcolm to take his place beside him: there they talked and dreamed together of the life to come, with many wanderings and returns; and little as the boy knew of the ocean-depths of sorrowful experience in the bosom of his companion whence floated up the breaking bubbles of rainbow-hued thought, his words fell upon his heart--not to be provender for the birds of flitting fancy and airy speculation, but the seed--it might be decades ere it ripened--of a coming harvest of hope. At length the master rose and said,-- “Malcolm, I’m going in: I should like you to stay here half an hour alone, and then go straight home to bed.” For the master believed in solitude and silence. Say rather, he believed in God. What the youth might think, feel, or judge, he could not tell; but he believed that when the Human is still, the Divine speaks to it, because it is its own. Malcolm consented willingly. The darkness had deepened, the graves all but vanished; an old setting moon appeared, boatlike over a great cloudy chasm, into which it slowly sank; blocks of cloud, with stars between, possessed the sky; all nature seemed thinking about death; a listless wind began to blow, and Malcolm began to feel as if he were awake too long, and _ought_ to be asleep--as if he were out in a dream--a dead man that had risen too soon or lingered too late--so lonely, so forsaken! The wind, soft as it was, seemed to blow through his very soul. Yet something held him, and his half hour was long over when he left the churchyard. As he walked home, the words of a German poem, a version of which Mr Graham had often repeated to him, and once more that same night, kept ringing in his heart: