The custom of relatives and intimate friends being at the encoffining or "kistin'" is to some extent associated with the "lykewake," or "latewake," of Roman Catholic usage. Although now quite unknown among adherents of the Scottish Presbyterian Church, such wakes were at one time common enough, even after the Reformation. They were, however, attended by such unseemly behaviour that in 1645 the General Assembly passed an edict to suppress them. [Illustration: FUNERAL HOSPITALITY. Sketch by J. Copland, Dundrennan.] That the custom still continued is brought out by the knowledge that in 1701 it was found necessary to revive and enforce the statute against the practice. The culminating feature of the rites of bereavement, the funeral ceremony, was in these old days (particularly between the years 1700 and 1800) an occasion altogether outstanding in social importance. It was an occasion, however, very often marred by the profuse liberality and use of stimulants, lavish hospitality in the house of mourning being too frequently followed by ludicrous and extraordinary results as the body was being conveyed to its last resting-place. "A funeral party," for example, "had wended their way for miles through deep snow over Eskdale Moor, bound for Moffat Churchyard. On arriving at the burial-ground it was actually discovered that they had dropped the coffin by the way, the back having fallen from the cart on which it was being conveyed."(74) Ten o'clock in the morning saw the commencement of the funeral ceremonies, this being so generally understood that no special hour was mentioned in "the bidding to the buriall." The setting-out for the churchyard, however, or the "liftin'," as it was termed, did not, as a rule, take place for several hours later, and in many instances not until well on in the afternoon. This delay, as well as giving ample time to partake of refreshment, was really meant to enable all the guests to gather together, many of them travelling long distances, which were not made shorter by bad roads or inclement weather. A precaution sometimes taken before the company moved off was to send someone to the top of the nearest height to signal when the horizon was clear and no more guests in sight. The place of entertainment was usually the barn. Planks laid along the tops of wooden trestles formed a large table, on which were piled up a superabundance of food and drink, while a constant feature of the entertainment was an imposing array of tobacco pipes already filled by the women who had sat beside, or watched, the dead body. It was not considered seemly for the women of the house to mingle with the male guests. The usual custom in Galloway and Nithsdale was for the women folk to sit together in a room apart.