“Aye, weel, we’ll take the Latin first, syne we’ll hear aboot the ither maitter. My leg was gey troublesome the day, else I wad hae gone to the funeral. He was a good man was the auld colonel, ane o’ the ‘gentle persuasion,’ in the richt sense o’ the word, an’ deserved a’ the respect that could be shown him.” In a few minutes I had told my difficulty in the Latin version and had the construction fully explained; and you may be sure, my books were very speedily replaced in my schoolbag. “Noo,” said Mr. Lindsay, taking a pinch of snuff from his silver box and leaning back in his arm chair. “Ye was at the funeral, ye wis saying. What thocht ye o’ that? There would be a lot of folk there, I’ll warrant. I heard the pipes playing the coronach and I couldna help thinking of the many times that the sound of the pipes had sounded in the old colonel’s ear as he led his Highlanders to victory.” In my simple Scotch way I tried to tell my old friend all I had seen and heard. “It wasna like ony ither burial I ever saw. They didna hae a black mortcloth ower the coffin, but a purple ane. Wasna that queer?” In ordinary conversation the dominie used the broad Doric Scotch of our part of the country; when he had any instructions to give or any important thing to communicate he spoke in good colloquial English, although sometimes a Scotch word might creep in. “Weel, you see, Alan, the Episcopalians have a meaning in their use of colors. They teach through the eye as well as through the ear, just as our Master did. For several hundreds of years purple has been used as the emblem of penitence and sorrow; and as penitence and sorrow for sin, if genuine, will bring peace, so this color teaches that mourning for one who is dead in Christ is not without hope, but will end in the joy of the resurrection morning.” “What a beautiful idea, Mr. Lindsay, I never thought they had any meaning in it at all, but just used that color because it was pretty. And they had, oh! such lovely flowers made up in wreaths and crosses, laid on the coffin. Oor folk never hae onything o’ that kind.”