CHAPTER XI: THE OLD CHURCH


The next day, the day of the Resurrection, rose glorious from its
sepulchre of sea fog and drizzle. It had poured all night long,
but at sunrise the clouds had broken and scattered, and the air was
the purer for the cleansing rain, while the earth shone with that
peculiar lustre which follows the weeping which has endured its
appointed night. The larks were at it again, singing as if their
hearts would break for joy as they hovered in brooding exultation
over the song of the future; for their nests beneath hoarded a wealth
of larks for summers to come. Especially about the old church--
half buried in the ancient trees of Lossie House, the birds that
day were jubilant; their throats seemed too narrow to let out the
joyful air that filled all their hollow bones and quills: they sang
as if they must sing, or choke with too much gladness. Beyond the
short spire and its shining cock, rose the balls and stars and
arrowy vanes of the House, glittering in gold and sunshine.

The inward hush of the Resurrection, broken only by the prophetic
birds, the poets of the groaning and travailing creation, held time
and space as in a trance; and the centre from which radiated both
the hush and the carolling expectation seemed to Alexander Graham
to be the churchyard in which he was now walking in the cool of the
morning. It was more carefully kept than most Scottish churchyards,
and yet was not too trim. Nature had a word in the affair--
was allowed her part of mourning, in long grass and moss and the
crumbling away of stone. The wholesomeness of decay, which both