Bog-Myrtle and Peat | Page 6

Ligartwood himself was stricken in one of the village hovels, and fell forward across a sick man's bed. They carried him to the manse of Dour, and wept as they went. The next day all the men that were alive in the parish of Dour stood about the minister's grave in the kirkyard on the hill. There was none there that could pray. But as they were about to separate, some one, it was never known who, raised the tune of the first Psalm. And the wind wafted to the weeping wives in the cottages of the stricken parish of Dour the sound of the hoarse and broken singing of men. In three weeks the minister had brought the evil parish of Dour into the presence of God.
And these were the words of their singing, while the gravediggers stood with the red earth ready on their spades, but before a clod fell on the minister's grave:--
"That man hath perfect blessedness Who walketh not astray In counsel of ungodly men, Nor stands in sinners' way, Nor sitteth in the scorner's chair; But placeth his delight Upon God's law, and meditates On his law day and night."
The new minister who succeeded had an easy time and a willing people. But he can never be to them what Abraham Ligartwood was. They graved on his tomb, and that with good cause, the words, "Here lyes a Man who never feared the face of Man."
_The lovers are whispering under thy shade, Grey Tower of Dalmeny! I leave them and wander alone in the glade Beneath thee, Dalmeny. Their thoughts are of all the bright years coming on, But mine are of days and of dreams that are gone; They see the fair flowers Spring has thrown on the grass, And the clouds in the blue light their eyes as they pass; But my feet are deep dawn in a drift of dead leaves, And I hear what they hear not--a lone bird that grieves. What matter? the end is not far for us all, And spring, through the summer, to winter must fall, And the lovers' light hearts, e'en as mine, will be laid, At last, and for ever, low under thy shade, Grey Tower of Dalmeny_.
GEORGE MILNER.

II
A CRY ACROSS THE BLACK WATER
_With Rosemary for remembrance, And Rue, sweet Rue, for you_.
It was at the waterfoot of the Ken, and the time of the year was June.
"Boat ahoy!"
The loud, bold cry carried far through the still morning air. The rain had washed down all that was in the sky during the night, so that the hail echoed through a world blue and empty.
Gregory Jeffray, a noble figure of a youth, stood leaning on the arch of his mare's neck, quieting the nervous tremors of Eulalie, that very dainty lady. His tall, alert figure, tight-reined and manly, was brought out by his riding-dress. His pose against the neck of the beautiful beast, from which a moment before he had swung himself, was that of Hadrian's young Antinous.
"Boat ahoy!"
Gregory Jeffray, growing a little impatient, made a trumpet of his hands, and sent the powerful voice, with which one day he meant to thrill listening senates, sounding athwart the dancing ripples of the loch.
On the farther shore was a flat white ferry-boat, looking, as it lay motionless in the river, like a white table chained in the water with its legs in the air. The chain along which it moved plunged into the shallows beside him, and he could see it descending till he lost it in the dusky pool across which the ferry plied. To the north, Loch Ken ran in glistening levels and island-studded reaches to the base of Cairnsmuir.
"Boat ahoy!"
A figure, like a white mark of exclamation moving over green paper, came out of the little low whitewashed cottage opposite, and stood a moment looking across the ferry, with one hand resting on its side and the other held level with the eyes. Then the observer disappeared behind a hedge, to be seen immediately coming down the narrow, deep-rutted lane towards the ferry-boat. When the figure came again in sight of Gregory Jeffray, he had no difficulty in distinguishing a slim girl, clad in white, who came sedately towards him.
When she arrived at the white boat which floated so stilly on the morning glitter of the water, only just stirred by a breeze from the south, she stepped at once on board. Gregory could see her as she took from the corner of the flat, where it stood erect along with other boating gear, something which looked like a short iron hoe. With this she walked to the end of the boat nearest him. She laid the hoe end of the instrument against a chain that ran breast-high along one side of the boat