kenned him in his guid days. So I took my stave an' my plaid an' gaed my
ways wi' her intil the nicht--a' lichtit up wi' lang raws o' gas-lamps,
an' awa' doon by the water-side whaur the tide sweels black aneath the
brigs. Man, a big lichtit toun at nicht is far mair lanesome than the
Dullarg muir when it's black as pit-mirk. When we got to the puir bit
hoosie, we fand that the doctor was there afore us. I had gotten him
brocht to Walter the nicht afore. But the lassie was nae sooner within
the door than she gied an unco-like cry, an' flang hersel' distrackit on
the bed. An' there I saw, atween her white airms and her tangled yellow
hair, the face o' Walter Anderson, the son o' the manse o' Deeside,
lyin' on the pillow wi' the chin tied up in a napkin!

"Never a sermon like that, Robert Adair!" said Saunders M'Quhirr
solemnly, after he had paused a moment.

Saunders and Robert were now turning off the wind-swept muir-road into
the sheltered little avenue which led up to the kirk above the white and
icebound Dee Water. The aged gravedigger, bent nearly double, met them
where the roads parted. A little farther up the newly elected minister
of the parish kirk stood at the manse door, in which Walter Anderson had
turned the key forty years ago for conscience' sake.

Very black and sombre looked the silent company of mourners who now drew
together about the open grave--a fearsome gash on the white spread of
the new-fallen snow. There was no religious service at the minister's
grave save that of the deepest silence. Ranked round the coffin, which
lay on black bars over the grave-mouth, stood the elders, but no one of
them ventured to take the posts of honour at the head and the foot. The
minister had left not one of his blood with a right to these positions.
He was the last Anderson of Deeside.