and six months later she was borne to St. Mungo's ancient burying
ground to share Jessie's grave.

"It's nigh on sixty years sin'," said Bell apologetically, as she wiped
her streaming eyes with her apron; "but the thocht o' that time brings
the tears up yet."




III

ARCHIE


"Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie."
(_Pope--"Ode to Solitude"_)


He was an unusually wretched semblance of a man. A tattered coat--some
one's cast-off overcoat--green, greasy, mud-stained, clung round his
shaking knees; trousers which might have been of any hue originally,
but were now "sad-colored," flapped about his thin legs and fringed his
ankles; shoes, slashed across the front for ease, revealed bare feet
beneath; an antique and dirty red woolen muffler swathed his neck
almost to the ears. Surmounting these woeful garments appeared a
yellow, wrinkled face surrounded by a straggling fringe of gray