The christening party mustered strong; and the rites of baptism were duly performed by the Rev. Duncan M’Drone.  The little Christian had been kissed by every lady in company, and pronounced by the matrons to be “a dainty little doug!” and by the misses to be “the sweetest lamb they had ever seen!” The cake and wine was in its progress round the company; when, upon its being tendered to the old gentleman, who was sitting silent in his arm-chair, he abruptly exclaimed, in a most discordant voice, “Hey! what’s a’ this wastery for?”—­and ere an answer could be returned his jaw dropped, his eyes fixed, and the Laird of Glenfern ceased to breathe!

CHAPTER XXVI.

“They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless.  Hence it is that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.”—­All’s Well that ends Well.

ALL attempts to reanimate the lifeless form proved unavailing; and the horror and consternation that reigned in the castle of Glenfern may be imagined, but cannot be described.  There is perhaps no feeling of our nature so vague, so complicated, so mysterious, as that with which we look upon the cold remains of our fellow-mortals.  The dignity with which death invests even the meanest of his victims inspires us with an awe no living thing can create.  The monarch on his throne is less awful than the beggar in his shroud.  The marble features—­the powerless hand—­the stiffened limbs—­oh! who can contemplate these with feelings that can be defined?  These are the mockery of all our hopes and fears, our fondest love our fellest hate.  Can it be that we now shrink with horror from the touch of that hand which but yesterday was fondly clasped in our own?  Is that tongue, whose accents even now dwell in our ear, forever chained in the silence of death?  These black and heavy eyelids, are they for ever to seal up in darkness the eyes whose glance no earthly power could restrain?  And the spirit which animated the clay, where is it now?  Is it wrapt in bliss, or dissolved in woe?  Does it witness our grief, and share our sorrows?  Or is the mysterious tie that linked it with mortality forever broken?  And the remembrance of earthly scenes, are they indeed to the enfranchised spirit as the morning dream, or the dew upon the early flower?  Reflections such as these naturally arise in every breast.  Their influence is felt, though their import cannot always be expressed.  The principle is in all the same, however it may differ in its operations.

In the family assembled round the lifeless form that had so long been the centre of their domestic circle, grief showed itself under various forms.  The calm and manly sorrow of the son; the saint-like feelings of his wife; the youthful agitation of Mary; the weak superstitious wailings of the sisters; and the loud uncontrolled lamentations of the daughters; all betokened an intensity of suffering that arose from the same source, varied according to the different channels in which it flowed.  Even the stern Lady Maclaughlan was subdued to something of kindred feeling; and though no tears dropped from her eyes, she sat by her friends, and sought, in her own way, to soften their affliction.