Part 12 (2/2)
”Or maybe doesna think, an' only says?”
”Maybe, sir; I dinna ken.”
”Come here, Malcolm,” said Mr Graham, and took him by the arm, and led him towards the east end of the church, where a few tombstones were crowded against the wall, as if they would press close to a place they might not enter.
”Read that,” he said, pointing to a flat stone, where every hollow letter was shown in high relief by the growth in it of a lovely moss. The rest of the stone was rich in gray and green and brown lichens, but only in the letters grew the bright moss; the inscription stood as it were in the hand of nature herself--”He is not here; he is risen.”
While Malcolm gazed, trying to think what his master would have him think, the latter resumed.
”If he is risen--if the sun is up, Malcolm--then the morning and not the evening is the season for the place of tombs; the morning when the shadows are shortening and separating, not the evening when they are growing all into one. I used to love the churchyard best in the evening, when the past was more to me than the future; now I visit it almost every bright summer morning, and only occasionally at night.”
”But, sir, isna deith a dreidfu' thing?” said Malcolm.
”That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate, or as the will of a perfect G.o.d. Its obscurity is its dread; but if G.o.d be light, then death itself must be full of splendour--a splendour probably too keen for our eyes to receive.”
”But there's the deein' itsel': isna that fearsome? It's that I wad be fleyed at.”
”I don't see why it should be. It's the want of a G.o.d that makes it dreadful, and you will be greatly to blame, Malcolm, if you haven't found your G.o.d by the time you have to die.”
They were startled by a gruff voice near them. The speaker was.
hidden by a corner of the church.
”Ay, she's weel happit (covered),” it said. ”But a grave never luiks richt wantin' a stane, an' her auld cousin wad hear o' nane bein' laid ower her. I said it micht be set up at her heid, whaur she wad never fin' the weicht o' 't; but na, na! nane o' 't for her! She's ane 'at maun tak her ain gait, say the ither thing wha likes.”
It was Wattie Witherspail who spoke--a thin shaving of a man, with a deep, harsh, indeed startling voice.
”An' what ailed her at a stane?” returned the voice of Jonathan Auldbuird, the s.e.xton. ”--Nae doobt it wad be the expense?”
”Amna I tellin' ye what it was? Deil a bit o' the expense cam intil the calcalation! The auld maiden's nane sae close as fowk 'at disna ken her wad mak her oot. I ken her weel. She wadna hae a stane laid upon her as gien she wanted to hand her doon, puir thing! She said, says she, 'The yerd's eneuch upo' the tap o' her, wantin'
that!'”
”It micht be some sair, she wad be thinkin' doobtless, for sic a waik worn cratur to lift whan the trump was blawn,” said the s.e.xton, with the feeble laugh of one who doubts the reception of his wit.
”Weel, I div whiles think,” responded Wattie,--but it was impossible from his tone to tell whether or not he spoke in earnest,--”'at maybe my boxies is a wheen ower weel made for the use they're pitten till. They sudna be that ill to rive--gien a' be true 'at the minister says. Ye see, we dinna ken whan that day may come, an' there may na be time for the wat an' the worm to ca (drive) the boords apairt.”
”Hoots, man! it's no your lang nails nor yet yer heidit screws 'll haud doon the redeemt, gien the jeedgement war the morn's mornin',”
said the s.e.xton; ”an' for the lave, they wad be glaid eneuch to bide whaur they are; but they'll a' be howkit oot,--fear na ye that.”
”The Lord grant a blessed uprisin' to you an' me, Jonathan, at that day!” said Wattie, in the tone of one who felt himself uttering a more than ordinarily religious sentiment and on the word followed the sound of their retreating footsteps.
”How closely together may come the solemn and the grotesque! the ludicrous and the majestic!” said the schoolmaster. ”Here, to us lingering in awe about the doors beyond which lie the gulfs of the unknown--to our very side come the wright and the grave digger with their talk of the strength of coffins and the judgment of the living G.o.d!”
”I hae whiles thoucht mysel', sir,” said Malcolm, ”it was gey strange like to hae a wuman o' the mak o' Mistress Catanach sittin' at the receipt o' bairns, like the gatekeeper o' the ither wan', wi' the hasp o' 't in her han': it doesna promise ower weel for them 'at she lats in. An' noo ye hae pitten't intil my heid that there's Wattie Witherspail an' Jonathan Auldbuird for the porters to open an' lat a' that's left o' 's oot again! Think o' sic like haein'
sic a han' in sic solemn maitters!”
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