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To the two girls, whose ideas of a crowd were for the most part associated with the quiet, orderly gatherings in the kirk-yard on the Sabbath-day, the scene that presented itself to them on reaching Point Saint Charles was more than bewildering; it was, for a minute or two, actually alarming.
When the patriarch was a young man he was a follower of pleasure. This is the one thing about him that his family have never been able to understand. A solemn stroll through the kirk-yard was not sufficient relaxation in those riotous times, after a hard day at the loom; and he rarely lost a chance of going to see a man hanged.
The kirk then began to skail; and when the minister and his family came out into the kirk-yard, all the heads of families present, moved by some sacred instinct from on high, followed them with one accord to the manse, like friends at a burial, where we told them, that whatever the Lord was pleased to allow to ourselves, a portion would be set apart for His servant.
'But those days are gone, my mother says solemnly, 'gone to come back no more. You'll put by your work now, man, and have your supper, and then you'll come up and sit beside your mother for a whiley, for soon you'll be putting her away in the kirk-yard. I hear such a little cry from near the door. So my mother and I go up the stair together.
Once every Sabbath in the kirk-yard, where he laid down the law beneath an old elm tree, and twice between Sabbaths, at the post-office and by the wayside, he adjured us not to expect beyond measure, and gave us reasons. "Ye see, he has a natural talent for learning, and took to Latin like a duck to water.
It seemed to him that the grave, earnest faces about him were settling themselves into sternness at the stirring of the same bitter memories and accusing thoughts; and he would fain have escaped from the glances, some of them kind and others half averted, that followed him into the kirk-yard when the service was over. But he could not escape.
And Lilias smiled in reply. When the service was over, and Mrs Blair and the children had passed out into the kirk-yard, Mrs Graham, the minister's widowed daughter, came and invited them into the manse till it should be time for the service in the afternoon. Mrs Blair went with her; but Archie was shy, and liked better to stay out in the pleasant kirk-yard; and Lilias stayed with him.
There was a rush of angry men through the "pend" that led to his habitation, and he was dragged, panting and terrified, to the kirk-yard before he understood what it all meant. To the grave they hurried him, and almost without a word handed him a spade.
It was not in the narrow kirk-yard seen from their window, but quite away in another part of the town, nearer to the place where they used to live, and Lilias paused before she had gone far, for she doubted if it would be right to venture down at that hour. She stood still a moment. "I shall not see them. They are not there. I must have patience." And she turned slowly back again.
Many the people walked eight, ten, and even twelve miles, from the extreme boundary of the parish, and waited about in the kirk or kirk-yard on fine Sundays, and in the Manse kitchen on wet ones which were much the most frequent during the two hours' interval between sermons.
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