The September sunshine glinted on the white silk George won with his
blood, and fell like a benediction on the two figures that climbed
the hard ascent close after the man they loved.

Strangers do not touch our dead in Drumtochty, but the eight of
nearest blood lower the body into the grave. The order of precedence
is keenly calculated, and the loss of a merited cord can never be
forgiven. Marget had arranged everything with Whinnie, and all saw
the fitness. His father took the head, and the feet (next in honour)
he gave to Domsie.

"Ye maun dae it. Marget said ye were o' his ain bluid."

On the right side the cords were handed to the Doctor, Gordon, and
myself; and on the left to Drumsheugh, Maclean, and Chalmers. Domsie
lifted the hood for Marget, but the roses he gently placed on
George's name. Then with bent, uncovered heads, and in unbroken
silence, we buried all that remained of our scholar.

We always waited till the grave was filled and the turf laid down, a
trying quarter of an hour. Ah me! the thud of the spade on your
mother's grave! None gave any sign of what he felt save Drumsheugh,
whose sordid slough had slipped off from a tender heart, and
Chalmers, who went behind a tombstone and sobbed aloud. Not even
Posty asked the reason so much as by a look, and Drumtochty, as it
passed, made as though it did not see. But I marked that the Dominie
took Chalmers home, and walked all the way with him to Kildrummie
station next morning. His friends erected a granite cross over
George's grave, and it was left to Domsie to choose the inscription.
There was a day when it would have been "Whom the gods love die