Gilian The Dreamer | Page 8

much they might know about the
hills, and woods, and wild beasts, it was likely enough better known to
himself, who lived among them and loved them. And the thoughts of
the gillie, and the shepherd, were rarely beyond his shrewd guess as he
looked at them; they had but to say a word or two, and he knew the end
of their story from the beginning. But these old gentlemen were as far
beyond his understanding as Gillesbeg Aotram, the wanderer who came
about the glens and was called daft by the people who did not know, as
Gilian did, that he was wiser than themselves.
The Paymaster took his rattan and knocked noisily on the table for the
landlord.

The Sergeant More stepped softly on his tiptoes six steps into the
kitchen, then six steps noisily back again and put his head in.
"What's your will, Captain?" said he, polishing a tray with the corner of
his brattie.
"Give this boy some dinner, for me," said the Paymaster. "There is
nothing at our place to-day but herrings, and it's the poorest of meals
for melancholy. Miss Mary would make it all the more melancholy
with her weeping over the goodwife of Ladyfield."
Gilian went out with the Sergeant More and made a feeble pretence at
eating his second dinner that day.
CHAPTER III
--THE FUNERAL
All the glen came to the funeral, and people of Lochowside on either
side from Stronmealachan to Eredine, and many of the folk of Glen
Shira and the town. A day of pleasant weather, with a warm wind from
the west, full of wholesome dryness for the soil that was still clogged
with the rains of spring. It filled the wood of Kincreggan with sounds,
with the rasping and creaking of branches and the rustle of leaves, and
the road by the river under the gean-trees was strewn with the broken
blossom.
The burial ground of Kilmalieu lies at the foot of a tall hill beside the
sea, a hill grown thick with ancient wood. The roots come sometimes
under the walls and below the old tombstones and set them ajee upon
their bases, but wanting those tall and overhanging companions, the
yard, I feel, would be ugly and incomplete. It is in a soothing
melancholy one may hear the tide lapping on the rocks below and the
wood-bird call in the trees above. They have been doing so in the ears
of Kilmalieu for numberless generations, those voices everlasting but
unheard by the quiet folk sleeping snug and sound among the clods.
Sun shines there and rain falls on it till it soaks to the very bones of the
old Parson, first to lie there, and in sun or rain there grow the

laurel-bushes that have the smell of death, and the gay flowers cluster
in a profusion found nowhere else in the parish except it be in the
garden of the Duke. The lily nods in the wind, the columbine hangs its
bell, there the snowdrop first appears and the hip-rose shows her richest
blossoms. On Sundays the children go up and walk among the stones
over the graves of their grandfathers and they smell the flowers they
would not pluck. Sometimes they will put a cap on the side of a cherub
head that tops a stone and the humour of the grinning face will create a
moment's laughter, but it is soon checked and they walk among the
graves in a more seemly peace.
They buried the goodwife of Ladyfield in her appointed place beside
her husband and her only child, Gilian taking a cord at the head of the
coffin as it was lowered into the red jaws of the grave prepared for it.
The earth thudded on the lid, the spades patted the mould, the people
moved off, and he was standing yet, listening to the bird that shook a
song of passionate melody from its little throat as it becked upon a
table tombstone. It was a simple song, he had heard it a thousand times
before and wondered at the hidden meaning of it, and now it puzzled
him anew that it should encroach upon so solemn an hour in
thoughtless love or merriment.
The men were on their way home over the New Bridge, treading
heavily, and yet light-headed, for they had the Paymaster's dram at the
"lifting" at Ladyfield in them, and the Paymaster himself was narrating
to old Rixa, the Sheriff, and Donacha Breck his story, told a hundred
times before, of Long Dan MacIntyre, who never came up past the New
Bridge, except at the tail of a funeral, for fear the weight should some
day bring the massive masonry down. "Ha! ha! is that not good?"
demanded the Paymaster, laughing till his