"Preserve us! wha's yon they're pittin' at the fit o' the grave? Wha can
it be ava?" was whispered here and there back in the crowd. "It's Jean
Grier's boy, I declare--him that the minister took oot o' the puirhoose,
and schuled and colleged baith. Weel, that cowes a'! Saw ye ever the
like o' that?"

It was to Rob Adair that this good and worthy thought had come. In him
more than in any of his fellow-elders the dead man's spirit lived. He
had sat under him all his life, and was sappy with his teaching. Some
would have murmured had they had time to complain, but no one ventured
to say nay to Rob Adair as he pushed the modest, clear-faced youth into
the vacant place.

Still the space at the head of the grave was vacant, and for a long
moment the ceremony halted as if waiting for a manifestation. With a
swift, sudden startle the coil of black cord, always reserved for the
chief mourner, slipped off the coffin-lid and fell heavily into the
grave.

"He's there afore his faither," said Saunders M'Quhirr.

So sudden and unexpected was the movement, that, though the fall of the
cord was the simplest thing in the world, a visible quiver passed
through the bowed ranks of the bearers. "It was his ain boy Wattie come
to lay his faither's heid i' the grave!" cried Daft Jess, the parish
"natural," in a loud sudden voice from the "thruch" stone near the
kirkyaird wall where she stood at gaze.

And there were many there who did not think it impossible.