They were festivals for Witherlee likewise; and, though the Sexton held that pride became no man, seeing what he must come to in the end, he always bore himself more youthfully at a burial and looked his fellow-men more squarely in the face. This was his workshop, and it pleased him that his lustier fellows, who were proud of their skill at farming or joinering or the like, should see that he, too, man of dreams as he was, could show a deft hand at his trade.
Gossip grew rife as the knot of sight-seers increased. One would tell a tale of the old days when Waynes and Ratcliffes fought at every cross-road, and another would cap the narrative with one more fearsome. The women talked of the good deeds that Wayne of Marsh had done, of the tidy bit o' brass his coffin had cost, of the mad pranks that Shameless Wayne had played in times past. The children played hide-and-seek among the graves, or crept to the vault-edge and peered down in awed expectation, awaiting they knew not what of such terrors as their mothers had taught them to associate with the dead. The grown lasses came with lavender in their aprons, and sprinkled the vault-floor with the lovesome herb, and sent up a prayer to the unknown and dreadful God who dwelt amid the peat-wastes and the bogs—a prayer that they might escape this last close prison until wedlock had given them bairns, lest the curse of the women who were buried with empty breasts should light on them.
"Th' corpse is coming!" some one cried on the sudden.
The chatter ceased, and all eyes sought the yew-shadowed turning of the pathway. Shameless Wayne, his cousin Rolf and two others carried the coffin at shoulder height. In front walked the Parson, his white hair ruffled by the breeze; behind them followed a score of kinsmen, the Long Waynes of Cranshaw over-topping all the others by a head; and behind these again walked a line of farm-men and of women-servants.
"Good sakes, they've getten swords an' pistols!" muttered one of the onlookers, as the crowd made a clear lane to the kirk-porch.
"By th' Heart, who iver heard tell o' folk coming armed to a burying!" cried another. "There mun be summat more going forrard nor we've ony notion on. Look at Shameless Wayne! God keep me an' mine fro' seeing sich mortal anguish i' a lad's face again! He looks fair mad wi' grief."
"He's getten cause. Hast noan heard that he war droughen while Nanny Witherlee war ringing for his father? Nay, he's a slow-to-blush un, an' proper, an' I wonder he's getten grace enough to come sober to th' grave.—Stand back, childer! Willun't ye be telled? Or mun ye bide i' th' gate till they bury ye wi' th' coffin?"
The children shrank back, curiosity killed by fright, and the bearers moved slowly up the path until the grey church hid them. Tongues were loosened again, and Jonas Feather, coming up with the information he had gleaned from the farmer from Wildwater way, was beset by a clamorous knot of folk.
"Ay, I war sure there war summat out o' th' ordinary—see'd th Ryecollar Ratcliffes crossing th' moor, tha says, Jonas?—Well, I mind th' owd days, but there war nowt so outrageous as this shows like to be—theer, hod thy whisht! They're coming fro' th' kirk."
Again a lane was formed, from the porch to the vault where Sexton Witherlee was waiting with his ropes. The wind was at peace, and its soft stir among the budding leaves mingled with song of redbreast and love-pipe of the throstles. A faint odour of lavender crept upward from the vault, suggesting quiet and fragrant hopes for better days to come. Yet the hush that settled over the watching crowd had little rest in it, and it was plain by their laboured breathing, as the coffin was lowered by the creaking ropes, that none looked for a peaceful end to a burial that counted sword and pistol as mourners.