SEPULTURE AT LAST.

Truly, it was Betsy, the mare which they had lost on that fearful day at the Stye Head Pass.  Her dread burden, the coffin containing the body of Angus Ray, was still strapped to her back.  None had come nigh to her, or this must have been removed.  She looked worn and tired as she rose now to her feet amid the snow.  The old creature was docile enough this morning, and when Ralph patted her head, she seemed to know the hand that touched her.

She had crossed a range of mountains, and lived, no doubt, on the thin grass of the fells.  She must have famished quickly had the snow fallen before.

Ralph was profoundly agitated.  Never before had Sim seen him betray such deep emotion.  If the horse with its burden had been a supernatural presence, the effect of its appearance on Ralph had not been greater.  At first clutching the bridle, he looked like a man who was puzzled to decide whether, after all, this thing that had occurred were not rather a spectre that had wandered out of his dreams than a tangible reality, a blessed and gracious reality, a mercy for which he ought there and then to fling himself in gratitude on the ground, even though the snow drifted over him forever and made that act his last.  Then the tears that tenderer moments could not bring stood in his enraptured eyes.  Those breathless instants were as the mirror of what seemed to be fifty years of fear and hope.

Ralph determined that no power on earth should remove his hand from the bridle until his father had at length been buried.  The parish of Askham must have its church and churchyard, and Angus Ray should be buried there.  They had not yet passed by the church—­it must be still in front of them—­and with the horse and its burden by their side the friends walked on.

When Ralph found voice to speak, he said, “Wednesday—­then it is three weeks to-day since we lost her, and for three weeks my father has waited sepulture!”

Presently they came within sight of a rude chapel that stood at the meeting of two roads.  A finger-post was at the angle, with arms pointing in three directions.  The chapel was a low whitewashed Gothic building, with a little belfry in which there hung no bell.  At its rear was a house with broken gablets and round dormers stuck deep into the thatch.  A burial ground lay in front of both edifices, and looked dreary and chilling now, with the snow covering its many mounds and dripping from the warm wood of its rude old crosses.

“This will be the minister’s house,” said Ralph.

They drew up in front and knocked at the door of a deep porch.  An old man opened it and looked closely at his visitors through sharp, watchful eyes.  He wore a close jerkin of thick blue homespun, and his broad-topped boots were strapped round his short pantaloons.

“Does the priest live here?” said Ralph, from the road, where he held the mare’s head.

“No priest lives here,” said the old man, somewhat curtly.