"Na, I thank ye. I hae putten ye to eneuch o' tribble already. I'll jist awa' hame."
"We are going to lay them down this evening. You won't go before the funeral. Indeed, I think you can't get away till Monday morning. My wife and I will be glad of your company till then."
"I'm no company for gentle-fowk, sir."
"Come and show me in which of these graves you would like to have her laid," I said.
He yielded and followed me.
Coombes had not dug many spadefuls before he saw what had been plain enough—that ten such men as he could not dig the graves in time. But there was plenty of help to be had from the village and the neighbouring farms. Most of them were now ready, but a good many men were still at work. The brown hillocks lay all about the church-yard—the mole-heaps of burrowing Death.
The stranger looked around him. His face grew critical. He stepped a little hither and thither. At length he turned to me and said—
"I wadna like to be greedy; but gin ye wad lat her lie next the kirk there—i' that neuk, I wad tak' it kindly. And syne gin ever it cam' aboot that I cam' here again, I wad ken whaur she was. Could ye get a sma' bit heidstane putten up? I wad leave the siller wi' ye to pay for't."
"To be sure I can. What will you have put on the stone?"
"Ow jist—let me see—Maggie Jamieson—nae Marget, but jist Maggie. She was aye Maggie at home. Maggie Jamieson, frae her father. It's the last thing I can gie her. Maybe ye micht put a verse o' Scripter aneath't, ye ken."