And these were the words of their singing, while the gravediggers stood with the red earth ready on their spades, but before a clod fell on the minister’s grave:—­

  “That man hath perfect blessedness
    Who walketh not astray
  In counsel of ungodly men,
    Nor stands in sinners’ way,
  Nor sitteth in the scorner’s chair;
    But placeth his delight
  Upon God’s law, and meditates
    On his law day and night.”

The new minister who succeeded had an easy time and a willing people.  But he can never be to them what Abraham Ligartwood was.  They graved on his tomb, and that with good cause, the words, “Here lyes a Man who never feared the face of Man.”

  The lovers are whispering under thy shade,
          Grey Tower of Dalmeny! 
  I leave them and wander alone in the glade
          Beneath thee, Dalmeny. 
  Their thoughts are of all the bright years coming on,
  But mine are of days and of dreams that are gone;
  They see the fair flowers Spring has thrown on the grass,
  And the clouds in the blue light their eyes as they pass;
  But my feet are deep dawn in a drift of dead leaves,
  And I hear what they hear not—­a lone bird that grieves. 
  What matter? the end is not far for us all,
  And spring, through the summer, to winter must fall,
  And the lovers’ light hearts, e’en as mine, will be laid,
  At last, and for ever, low under thy shade,
          Grey Tower of Dalmeny.

GEORGE MILNER.

II

A CRY ACROSS THE BLACK WATER

With Rosemary for remembrance,
And Rue, sweet Rue, for you.

It was at the waterfoot of the Ken, and the time of the year was June.

“Boat ahoy!”

The loud, bold cry carried far through the still morning air.  The rain had washed down all that was in the sky during the night, so that the hail echoed through a world blue and empty.

Gregory Jeffray, a noble figure of a youth, stood leaning on the arch of his mare’s neck, quieting the nervous tremors of Eulalie, that very dainty lady.  His tall, alert figure, tight-reined and manly, was brought out by his riding-dress.  His pose against the neck of the beautiful beast, from which a moment before he had swung himself, was that of Hadrian’s young Antinous.

“Boat ahoy!”

Gregory Jeffray, growing a little impatient, made a trumpet of his hands, and sent the powerful voice, with which one day he meant to thrill listening senates, sounding athwart the dancing ripples of the loch.

On the farther shore was a flat white ferry-boat, looking, as it lay motionless in the river, like a white table chained in the water with its legs in the air.  The chain along which it moved plunged into the shallows beside him, and he could see it descending till he lost it in the dusky pool across which the ferry plied.  To the north, Loch Ken ran in glistening levels and island-studded reaches to the base of Cairnsmuir.