“I’ll no du that, Grizzie; but come ye an’ luik at him,” said the laird, “an’ tell me what ye think. I makna a doobt he’s deid, but gien ye hae ony, we’ll du what we can; an’ we’ll sit up wi’ the corp thegither, an’ lat yoong an’ auld tak the rist they hae mair need o’ nor the likes o’ you an’ me.”
It was a proud moment in Grizzie’s life, one never forgotten, when the laird addressed her thus. She was ready in a moment, and they went together.
“The prince is haein’ his ain w’y the nicht!” she murmured to herself, as they bored their way through the wind to the great door.
When she came where the corpse lay, she stood for some moments looking down upon it without uttering a sound, nor was there any emotion in the fixed gaze of her eye. She had been brought up in a stern and nowise pitiful school. She made neither solemn reflection, nor uttered hope which her theology forbade her to cherish.
“Ye think wi’ me ’at he’s deid—dinna ye, Grizzie?” said the laird, in a voice that seemed to himself to intrude on the solemn silence.
She removed the handkerchief, and the jaw fell.
“He’s gane til ’s accoont,” she said. “It’s a great amoont; an’ mair on ae side nor he’ll weel bide. It’s sair eneuch, laird, whan we hae to gang at the Lord’s call, but whan the messenger comes frae the laich yett (low gate ), we maun jist lat gang an’ forget. But sae lang’s he’s a man, we maun do what we can—an’ that’s what we did last nicht; sae I’ll rin an’ get het watter.”
She did so, and they used every means they could think of for his recovery, but at length gave it up, heaped him over with blankets, for the last chance of spontaneous revival, and sitting down, awaited the slow-travelling, feeble dawn.
After they had sat in silence for nearly an hour, the laird spoke:
“We’ll read a psalm thegither, Grizzie,” he said.