His mother went to prepare supper for them. His father rose, and saying he would have a look at the night, went toward the door; for even his strange situation could not entirely smother the anxiety of the husbandman. But James glided past him to the door, determined not to be left alone with that thing in the chamber.
But in the meantime the wind had been rising, and the coffin had been tilting and resettling on its narrower end. At last, James opening the door, the gruesome thing fell forward just as he crossed the threshold, knocked him down, and settled on the top of him. His father, close behind him, tumbled over the obstruction, divined, in the light of a lamp in the passage, what the prostrate thing was, and scrambling to his feet with the only oath he had, I fully believe, ever uttered, cried: “Damn that fule, Willie Wabster! Had he naething better to dee nor sen’ to the hoose coffins naebody wantit—and syne set them doon like rotten-traps (rat-traps) to whomel puir Jeemie!” He lifted the thing from off the minister, who rose not much hurt, but both amazed and offended at the mishap, and went to his mother in the kitchen.
“Dinna say muckle to yer mither, Jeames laad,” said his father as he went; “that is, dinna explain preceesely hoo the ill-faured thing happent. I’ll hae amen’s (amends, vengeance) upon him!” So saying, he took the offensive vehicle, awkward burden as it was, in his two arms, and carrying it to the back of the cornyard, shoved it over the low wall into the dry ditch at its foot, where he heaped dirty straw from the stable over it.
“It’ll be lang,” he vowed to himsel, “or Willie Wabster hear the last o’ this!—and langer yet or he see the glint o’ the siller he thoucht he was yirnin by ’t!—It’s come and cairry ’t hame himsel he sall, the muckle idiot! He may turn ’t intil a breid-kist, or what he likes, the gomf!”
“Fain wud I screw the reid heid o’ ’im intil that same kist, and haud him there, short o’ smorin!” he muttered as he went back to the house.—“Faith, I could ’maist beery him ootricht!” he concluded, with a grim smile.
Ere he re-entered the house, however, he walked a little way up the hill, to cast over the vault above him a farmer’s look of inquiry as to the coming night, and then went in, shaking his head at what the clouds boded.
Marion had brought their simple supper into the parlour, and was sitting there with James, waiting for him. When they had ended their meal, and Eppie had removed the remnants, the husband and wife went into the adjoining chamber and sat down by the bedside, where James presently joined them with a book in his hand. Eppie, having rested the fire in the kitchen, came into the parlour, and sat on the edge of a chair just inside the door.
Peter had said nothing about the night, and indeed, in his wrath with the carpenter, had hardly noted how imminent was the storm; but the air had grown very sultry, and the night was black as pitch, for a solid mass of cloud had blotted out the stars: it was plain that, long before morning, a terrible storm must break. But midnight came and went, and all was very still.
Suddenly the storm was upon them, with a forked, vibrating flash of angry light that seemed to sting their eyeballs, and was replaced by a darkness that seemed to crush them like a ponderous weight. Then all at once the weight itself seemed torn and shattered into sound—into heaps of bursting, roaring, tumultuous billows. Another flash, yet another and another followed, each with its crashing uproar of celestial avalanches. At the first flash Peter had risen and gone to the larger window of the parlour, to discover, if possible, in what direction the storm was travelling. Marion, feeling as if suddenly unroofed, followed him, and James was left alone with the dead. He sat, not daring to move; but when the third flash came, it flickered and played so long about the dead face, that it seemed for minutes vividly visible, and his gaze was fixed on it, fascinated. The same moment, without a single preparatory movement, Isy was on her feet, erect on the bed.
A great cry reached the ears of the father and mother. They hurried into the chamber: James lay motionless and senseless on the floor: a man’s nerve is not necessarily proportioned to the hardness of his heart! The verity of the thing had overwhelmed him.