The appointed day arrived, and so did the guests too; and although the invitations had only extended to the men, yet did their wives, like considerate folks as they always are, reflect that a dying man cannot have all his wits about him, and had any one but taken the trouble to remind him that there were such things as angels even in this world, they would no doubt have been included, and with that view of the case they considered it their duty to give their aid in the _mournful_ ceremony. The duties of the day at length began as was usual on those days, by-- "One-mile prayers and half-mile graces," to which the assembled multitude impatiently listened with their "Toom wames and lang wry faces." That ceremony over, they proceeded with all due diligence to honour the last request of the departed laird. The droves of bullocks, sheep, and turkeys, which had been sacrificed for the occasion, were served up at mid-day, and as every description of foreign and British wines, spirits, and ales flowed in pailfuls, the executors indulged in the very reasonable expectation that the whole party would be sufficiently glorious to authorize their proceeding with their last duty so as to have it over before dark: but they had grossly miscalculated the capacities of their guests, for even at dusk when they considered themselves compelled to put the procession in motion at all hazards, it was found that many of them were not more than "half seas over." The distance from Abbots-Haugh to the dormitory of the parish-church is nearly two miles, the first half of the road runs still between two broad deep ditches which convey the drainings of these lowlands into the river; the other half is now changed by the intersection of the great canal, but an avenue formed by two quick-set hedge-rows still marks its former line. Doctor Mac Adam had not in those days begun to disturb the bowels of the harmless earth, by digging for stones wherewith to deface its surface, so that the roads were perfect evergreens, (when nobody travelled upon them,) but at the period I speak of, a series of wet weather and perpetual use had converted them into a sort of hodge-podge, which contributed nothing towards maintaining the gravity of the unsteady multitude now in motion, so that although the hearse started with some five or six hundred followers, all faithful and honest in their purpose to see the end of the ceremony, there were not above as many dozens who succeeded in following it into the church-yard, which it reached about midnight. These few however went on in the discharge of their duty and proceeded to remove the coffin from the hearse to its intended receptacle, but to their utter consternation there was no longer a coffin or a corpse there!