“An’ hoo’s yer puir mother, Mr. Sutherlan’?”

“She’s pretty well,” was all Hugh could answer.

“It’s a sair stroke to bide,” said David; “but it’s a gran’ thing whan a man’s won weel throw’t.  Whan my father deit, I min’ weel, I was sae prood to see him lyin’ there, in the cauld grandeur o’ deith, an’ no man ’at daured say he ever did or spak the thing ’at didna become him, ‘at I jist gloried i’ the mids o’ my greetin’.  He was but a puir auld shepherd, Mr. Sutherlan’, wi’ hair as white as the sheep ‘at followed him; an’ I wat as they followed him, he followed the great Shepherd; an’ followed an’ followed, till he jist followed Him hame, whaur we’re a’ boun’, an’ some o’ us far on the road, thanks to Him!”

And with that David rose, and got down the Bible, and, opening it reverently, read with a solemn, slightly tremulous voice, the fourteenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel.  When he had finished, they all rose, as by one accord, and knelt down, and David prayed: 

“O Thou in whase sicht oor deeth is precious, an’ no licht maitter; wha through darkness leads to licht, an’ through deith to the greater life!—­we canna believe that thou wouldst gie us ony guid thing, to tak’ the same again; for that would be but bairns’ play.  We believe that thou taks, that thou may gie again the same thing better nor afore—­mair o’t and better nor we could ha’ received it itherwise; jist as the Lord took himsel’ frae the sicht o’ them ’at lo’ed him weel, that instead o’ bein’ veesible afore their een, he micht hide himsel’ in their verra herts.  Come thou, an’ abide in us, an’ tak’ us to bide in thee; an’ syne gin we be a’ in thee, we canna be that far frae ane anither, though some sud be in haven, an’ some upo’ earth.  Lord help us to do oor wark like thy men an’ maidens doon the stair, remin’in’ oursel’s, ’at them ’at we miss hae only gane up the stair, as gin ‘twar to haud things to thy han’ i’ thy ain presence-chamber, whaur we houp to be called or lang, an’ to see thee an’ thy Son, wham we lo’e aboon a’; an’ in his name we say, Amen!”

Hugh rose from his knees with a sense of solemnity and reality that he had never felt before.  Little was said that evening; supper was eaten, if not in silence, yet with nothing that could be called conversation.  And, almost in silence, David walked home with Hugh.  The spirit of his father seemed to walk beside him.  He felt as if he had been buried with him; and had found that the sepulchre was clothed with green things and roofed with stars—­was in truth the heavens and the earth in which his soul walked abroad.