Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/768

762 this must miss the departed who were dear to them more than we, who are thrown into the whirl of life and may forget now and again, if we cannot altogether console ourselves. We bury our dead out of our sight, and so far we are done with them; but in these Highland solitudes, after the funeral as before it, do what they will, the dead must always be with them. Look at the peasants of the Breton coast, with their sombre fancies, which nevertheless are sad realities to the survivors."

Grace, although sufficiently impressionable, was taken aback, for she happened to be thinking of the cold chicken in the basket. But tant bien que mal, she caught the ball on the rebound, and dropped sympathetically into her companion's gloomy train of thought.

"And can you conceive anything more sadly depressing than a child's funeral here in the winter? There is no putting it off, because the few mourners have gathered together from great distances, perhaps hazarded their lives in the blinding snowstorm and the snowdrifts. And the mother, broken down by watching and grief, is toiling up the hill behind the little coffin; and even the father's strength has been overtasked in digging through the frozen ground; and the light of the cottage has been laid to rest in a spot that is the very abomination of bleak desolation."

With such cheerful talk they beguiled the way, till, having reached the summit of the grassy steep, the lonely churchyard lay full in front of them. Whatever it might be in the depth of winter, the spot seemed enchanting now. It was on the grassy crest of a rocky headland, surrounded on three sides by a brawling stream. A clump or two of venerable yews had been dwarfed and warped by exposure to the weather; and beneath and around them, and within the dilapidated wall, were the mounds, not a few of which were almost level with the greensward, with a sprinkling of grey and moss-grown headstones. The lustre of the noonday sun was gilding the scene he could hardly brighten; but by way of compensation, the mountains to the westward were bathed in all the glories of his golden light. Both Leslie and his cousin involuntarily paused, simultaneously struck by the pathos and the splendour of the spectacle. A still more touching surprise was awaiting them. As Leslie was about to move on, Grace laid a finger on his arm. But it hardly needed her whispered "Hush!" to make him stoop forward and listen with all his ears. There was a murmur of childish voices, which would have sounded strangely spirit-like had it been midnight instead of brilliant noon.

Grace stole softly forward, her cousin following. Another moment, and the chicken and her hunger were altogether forgotten.

What they saw was such a scene of unaffected grief as might have inspired the pen of a Hogg or the brush of a Wilkie. There was a newly cast mound beneath the boughs of a yew, and near the brink of the precipice. And by it a comely young woman was kneeling, her chin in her hands, her elbows on the grass, and her swimming grey eyes gazing wildly into vacancy. Though their feelings were stirred in sympathy with her grief, the onlookers nevertheless were struck by the details of the picture. Setting the refining influences of a profound sorrow aside, the mourner was graceful beyond the generality of women of her station. If her complexion was freckled and her cheek-bones were somewhat high, there was beauty with great sweet-