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DUST TO DUST.
The next night, as if by a common understanding, for it was without
word spoken, the three met again in the housekeeper's room, where
she had supper waiting. Of business nothing was said until that was
over. Mistress Brookes told them two or three of the stories of
which she had so many, and Donal recounted one or two of those that
floated about his country-side.
"I've been thinkin'," said mistress Brookes at length, "seein' it's
a bonny starry nicht, we couldna do better than lift an' lay doon
this varra nicht. The hoose is asleep."
"What do you say to that place in the park where was once a
mausoleum?" said Donal.
"It's the varra place!--an' the sooner the better--dinna ye think,
my lady?"
Arctura with a look referred the question to Donal.
"Surely," he answered. "But will there not be some preparations to
make?"
"There's no need o' mony!" returned the housekeeper. "I'll get a
fine auld sheet, an' intil 't we'll put the remains, an' row them
up, an' carry them to their hame. I'll go an' get it, my lady.--But
wouldna 't be better for you and me, sir, to get a' that dune by
oorsel's? My leddy could j'in us whan we cam up."
"She wouldn't like to be left here alone. There is nothing to be
called fearsome!"
"Nothing at all," said Arctura.
"The forces of nature," said Donal, "are constantly at work to
destroy the dreadful, and restore the wholesome. It is but a few
handfuls of clean dust."
The housekeeper went to one of her presses, and brought out a sheet.
Donal put a plaid round lady Arctura. They went up to her room, and
so down to the chapel. Half-way down the narrow descent mistress
Brookes murmured, "Eh, sirs!" and said no more.
Each carried a light, and the two could see the chapel better. A
stately little place it was: when the windows were unmasked, it
would be beautiful!
They stood for some moments by the side of the bed, regarding in
silence. Seldom sure had bed borne one who slept so long!--one who,
never waking might lie there still! When they spoke it was in
whispers.
"How are we to manage it, mistress Brookes?" said Donal.
"Lay the sheet handy, alang the side o' the bed, maister Grant, an'
I s' lay in the dist, han'fu' by han'fu'. I hae that respec' for the
deid, I hae no difficlety aboot han'lin' onything belongin' to
them."
"Gien it hadna been that he tuik it again," said Donal, "the Lord's
ain body wad hae come to this."
As he spoke he laid the sheet on the bed, and began to lay in it the
dry dust and air-wasted bones, handling them as reverently as if the
spirit had but just departed. Mistress Brookes would have prevented
Arctura, but she insisted on having her share in the burying of her
own: who they were God knew, but they should be hers anyhow, and one
day she would know! For to fancy we go into the other world a set of
spiritual moles burrowing in the dark of a new and unknown
existence, is worthy only of such as have a lifeless Law to their
sire. We shall enter it as children with a history, as children
going home to a long line of living ancestors, to develop closest
relations with them. She would yet talk, live face to face, with
those whose dust she was now lifting in her two hands to restore it
to its dust. Then they carried the sheet to the altar, and thence
swept into it every little particle, back to its mother dust. That
done, Donal knotted the sheet together, and they began to look
around them.
Desirous of discovering where the main entrance to the chapel had
been, Donal spied under the windows a second door, and opened it
with difficulty. It disclosed a passage below the stair, three steps
lower than the floor of the chapel, parallel with the wall, and
turning, at right angles under the gallery. Here he saw signs of an
obliterated door in the outer wall, but could examine no farther for
the present.
In the meantime his companions had made another sort of discovery:
near the foot of the bed was a little table, on which were two
drinking vessels, apparently of pewter, and a mouldering pack of
cards! Card-playing and the hidden room did hold some relation with
each other! The cards and the devil were real!
Donal took up the sheet--a light burden, and Arctura led the way.
Arrived at her room, they went softly across to the door opening on
Donal's stair--not without fear of the earl, whom indeed they might
meet anywhere--and by that descending, reached the open air, and
took their way down the terraces and through the park to the place
of burial.
It was a frosty night, with the waning sickle of a moon low in the
heaven, and many brilliant stars above it. Followed by faint
ethereal shadows, they passed over the grass, through the ghostly
luminous dusk--of funereal processions one of the strangest that
ever sought a tomb.
The ruin was in a hollow, surrounded by trees. Donal removed a
number of fallen stones and dug a grave. They lowered into it the
knotted sheet, threw in the earth again, heaped the stones above,
and left the dust with its dust. Then silent they went back,
straight along the green, moon-regarded rather than moon-lit grass:
if any one had seen them through the pale starry night, he would
surely have taken them for a procession of the dead themselves!
No dream of death sought Arctura that night, but in the morning she
woke suddenly from one of disembodied delight.
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