no a dogcairt wi' twa men in the front; they 'ill be comin' tae the
beerial."
"What wud ye sae, Jamie," Hillocks suggested, "but it micht be some
o' thae Muirtown doctors? they were awfu' chief wi' MacLure."
"It's nae Muirtown doctors," cried Jamie, in great exultation, "nor
ony ither doctors. A' ken thae horses, and wha's ahint them. Quick,
man Hillocks, stop the fouk, and tell Drumsheugh tae come oot, for
Lord Kilspindie hes come up frae Muirtown Castle."
Jamie himself slipped behind, and did not wish to be seen.
"It's the respeck he's gettin' the day frae high an' low," was
Jamie's husky apology; "tae think o' them fechtin' their wy doon
frae Glen Urtach, and toiling roond frae the heich Glen, an' his
lordship driving through the drifts a' the road frae Muirtown, juist
tae honour Weelum MacLure's beerial.
"It's nae ceremony the day, ye may lippen tae it; it's the hert
brocht the fouk, an' ye can see it in their faces; ilka man hes his
ain reason, an' he's thinkin' on't, though he's speakin' o' naethin'
but the storm; he's mindin' the day Weelum pued him oot frae the
jaws o' death, or the nicht he savit the gude wife in her oor o'
tribble.
"That's why they pit on their blacks this mornin' afore it wes
licht, and wrastled through the sna drifts at risk o' life.
Drumtochty fouk canna say muckle, it's an awfu' peety, and they 'ill
dae their best tae show naethin', but a' can read it a' in their
een.
"But wae's me"--and Jamie broke down utterly behind a fir tree, so
tender a thing is a cynic's heart--"that fouk 'ill tak a man's best
wark a' his days withoot a word an' no dae him honour till he dees.
Oh, if they hed only githered like this juist aince when he wes
livin', an' lat him see he hedna laboured in vain. His reward hes
come ower late, ower late."
During Jamie's vain regret, the Castle trap, bearing the marks of a
wild passage in the snow-covered wheels, a broken shaft tied with
rope, a twisted lamp, and the panting horses, pulled up between two
rows of farmers, and Drumsheugh received his lordship with evident
emotion.
"Ma lord ... we never thocht o' this ... an' sic a road."
"How are you, Drumsheugh? and how are you all this wintry day?
That's how I'm half an hour late; it took us four hours' stiff work
for sixteen miles, mostly in the drifts, of course."
"It wes gude o' yir lordship, tae mak sic an effort, an' the hale
Glen wull be gratefu' tae ye, for ony kindness tae him is kindness
tae us."
"You make too much of it, Drumsheugh," and the clear, firm voice was
heard of all; "it would have taken more than a few snow drifts to
keep me from showing my respect to William MacLure's memory."
When all had gathered in a half circle before the kitchen door, Lord
Kilspindie came out--every man noticed he had left his overcoat, and
was in black, like the Glen--and took a place in the middle with
Drumsheugh and Burnbrae, his two chief tenants, on the right and
left, and as the minister appeared every man bared his head.
The doctor looked on the company--a hundred men such as for strength
and gravity you could hardly have matched in Scotland--standing out
in picturesque relief against the white background, and he said:
"It's a bitter day, friends, and some of you are old; perhaps it
might be wise to cover your heads before I begin to pray."
Lord Kilspindie, standing erect and greyheaded between the two old
men, replied:
"We thank you, Dr. Davidson, for your thoughtfulness; but he endured
many a storm in our service, and we are not afraid of a few minutes'
cold at his funeral."
A look flashed round the stern faces, and was reflected from the
minister, who seemed to stand higher.
His prayer, we noticed with critical appreciation, was composed for
the occasion, and the first part was a thanksgiving to God for the
life-work of our doctor, wherein each clause was a reference to his
services and sacrifices. No one moved or said Amen--it had been
strange with us--but when every man had heard the gratitude of his
dumb heart offered to Heaven, there was a great sigh.
After which the minister prayed that we might have grace to live as
this man had done from youth to old age, not for himself, but for
others, and that we might be followed to our grave by somewhat of
"that love wherewith we mourn this day Thy servant departed." Again
the same sigh, and the minister said Amen.
The "wricht" stood in the doorway without speaking, and four
stalwart men came forward. They were the volunteers that would lift
the coffin and carry it for the first stage. One was Tammas, Annie
Mitchell's man; and another was Saunders Baxter, for whose life
MacLure had his great fight with death; and the third was the Glen
Urtach shepherd for whose wife's sake MacLure suffered a broken leg
and three fractured ribs in a drift; and the fourth, a Dunleith man,
had his own reasons of remembrance.
"He's far lichter than ye wud expeck for sae big a man--there wesna
muckle left o' him, ye see--but the road is heavy, and a'll change
ye aifter the first half mile."
"Ye needna tribble yersel, wricht," said the man from Glen Urtach;
"the'll be nae change in the cairryin' the day," and Tammas was
thankful some one had saved him speaking.
Surely no funeral is like unto that of a doctor for pathos, and a
peculiar sadness fell on that company as his body was carried out
who for nearly half a century had been their help in sickness, and
had beaten back death time after time from their door. Death after
all was victor, for the man that saved them had not been able to
save himself.
As the coffin passed the stable door a horse neighed within, and
every man looked at his neighbour. It was his old mare crying to her
master.
Jamie slipped into the stable, and went up into the stall.
"Puir lass, ye're no gaein' wi' him the day, an' ye 'ill never see
him again; ye've hed yir last ride thegither, an' ye were true tae
the end."
After the funeral Drumsheugh came himself for Jess, and took her to
his farm. Saunders made a bed for her with soft, dry straw, and
prepared for her supper such things as horses love. Jess would
neither take food nor rest, but moved uneasily in her stall, and
seemed to be waiting for some one that never came. No man knows what
a horse or a dog understands and feels, for God hath not given them
our speech. If any footstep was heard in the courtyard, she began to
neigh, and was always looking round as the door opened. But nothing
would tempt her to eat, and in the night-time Drumsheugh heard her
crying as if she expected to be taken out for some sudden journey.
The Kildrummie veterinary came to see her, and said that nothing
could be done when it happened after this fashion with an old horse.
"A've seen it aince afore," he said. "Gin she were a Christian
instead o' a horse, ye micht say she wes dying o' a broken hert."
He recommended that she should be shot to end her misery, but no man
could be found in the Glen to do the deed, and Jess relieved them of
the trouble. When Drumsheugh went to the stable on Monday morning, a
week after Dr. MacLure fell on sleep, Jess was resting at last, but
her eyes were open and her face turned to the door.
"She wes a' the wife he hed," said Jamie, as he rejoined the
procession, "an' they luved ane anither weel."
The black thread wound itself along the whiteness of the Glen, the
coffin first, with his lordship and Drumsheugh behind, and the
others as they pleased, but in closer ranks than usual, because the
snow on either side was deep, and because this was not as other
funerals. They could see the women standing at the door of every
house on the hillside, and weeping, for each family had some good
reason in forty years to remember MacLure. When Bell Baxter saw
Saunders alive, and the coffin of the doctor that saved him on her
man's shoulder, she bowed her head on the dyke, and the bairns in
the village made such a wail for him they loved that the men nearly
disgraced themselves.
"A'm gled we're through that, at ony rate," said Hillocks; "he wes
awfu' taen up wi' the bairns, conseederin' he hed nane o' his ain."
There was only one drift on the road between his cottage and the
kirkyard, and it had been cut early that morning.
Before daybreak Saunders had roused the lads in the bothy, and they
had set to work by the light of lanterns with such good will that,
when Drumsheugh came down to engineer a circuit for the funeral,
there was a fair passage, with walls of snow twelve feet high on
either side.
"Man, Saunders," he said, "this wes a kind thocht, and rael weel
dune."
But Saunders' only reply was this:
"Mony a time he's hed tae gang roond; he micht as weel hae an open
road for his last traivel."
When the coffin was laid down at the mouth of the grave, the only
blackness in the white kirkyard, Tammas Mitchell did the most
beautiful thing in all his life. He knelt down and carefully wiped
off the snow the wind had blown upon the coffin, and which had
covered the name, and when he had done this he disappeared behind
the others, so that Drumsheugh could hardly find him to take a cord.
For these were the eight that buried Dr. MacLure--Lord Kilspindie at
the head as landlord and Drumsheugh at the feet as his friend; the
two ministers of the parish came first on the right and left; then
Burnbrae and Hillocks of the farmers, and Saunders and Tammas for
the plowmen. So the Glen he loved laid him to rest.
When the bedrel had finished his work and the turf had been spread,
Lord Kilspindie spoke:
"Friends of Drumtochty, it would not be right that we should part in
silence and no man say what is in every heart. We have buried the
remains of one that served this Glen with a devotion that has known
no reserve, and a kindliness that never failed, for more than forty
years. I have seen many brave men in my day, but no man in the
trenches of Sebastopol carried himself more knightly than William
MacLure. You will never have heard from his lips what I may tell you
to-day, that my father secured for him a valuable post in his
younger days, and he preferred to work among his own people; and I
wished to do many things for him when he was old, but he would have
nothing for himself. He will never be forgotten while one of us
lives, and I pray that all doctors everywhere may share his spirit.
If it be your pleasure, I shall erect a cross above his grave, and
shall ask my old friend and companion Dr. Davidson, your minister,
to choose the text to be inscribed."
"We thank you, Lord Kilspindie," said the doctor, "for your presence
with us in our sorrow and your tribute to the memory of William
MacLure, and I choose this for his text:
"'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends.'"
Milton was, at that time, held in the bonds of a very bitter
theology, and his indignation was stirred by this unqualified
eulogium.
"No doubt Dr. MacLure hed mony natural virtues, an' he did his wark
weel, but it wes a peety he didna mak mair profession o' releegion."
"When William MacLure appears before the Judge, Milton," said
Lachlan Campbell, who that day spoke his last words in public, and
they were in defence of charity, "He will not be asking him about
his professions, for the doctor's judgment hass been ready long ago;
and it iss a good judgment, and you and I will be happy men if we
get the like of it.
"It iss written in the Gospel, but it iss William MacLure that will
not be expecting it."
"What is't, Lachlan?" asked Jamie Soutar, eagerly.
The old man, now very feeble, stood in the middle of the road, and
his face, once so hard, was softened into a winsome tenderness.
"'Come, ye blessed of My Father ... I was sick, and ye visited Me.'"
End of Project Gutenberg's Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, by Ian Maclaren