And rising, he opened two bottles, and filled the glasses the second
time with wine, red and white, which he handed to the minister first.
"Tak' a drappy mair, sir," he whispered in a coaxing, old-wivish tone;
"it's a lang road to the kirkyard."
But the minister declining, most of the others followed his example.
One after another they withdrew to the door, where the hearse was now
laden with the harvest of the grave.
Falling in behind the body, they moved in an irregular procession from
the yard. Outside, they were joined by several more in gigs and on
horseback; and thus they crept, a curious train, away towards the
resting-place of the dead.
It were a dreary rest, indeed, if that were their resting-place--on the
side of a low hill, without tree or shrub to beautify it, or even the
presence of an old church to seem to sanctify the spot. There was some
long grass in it, though, clambering up as if it sought to bury the
gravestones in their turn. And that long grass was a blessing. Better
still, there was a sky overhead, in which men cannot set up any
gravestones. But if any graveyard be the type of the rest expected by
those left behind, it is no wonder they shrink from joining those that
are away.
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