“Walkin',” repeated Jamie, with much bitterness, as of one who despaired of Drumtochty, and saw no use in wasting his breath; “juist so: ye 've hed mair rain here than in England.”
“Never mind Whinnie, Jamie,” intervened Drumsheugh; “we maun hae the rest o' the funeral; wes there another coach?”
“What wud ye say,” and Jamie spoke with much solemnity, “tae a private kerridge, an' mair than ane? Ay, ye may look.” allowing himself some freedom of recollection. “Sir Andra's wes next tae the coach, wi' the blinds drawn doon, and aifter it an elder's frae her kirk. He heard o' Lily through the minister, an' naething wud sateesfy him but tae dae her sic honour as he cud.
“Gaein' roond the corners o' the streets—a' cudna help it, neeburs—a' juist took a glisk oot at the window, an' when a' saw the banker's horses wi' the silver harness, a' wushed ye hed been there; sic respect tae a Drumtochty lass.
“Ye saw the lilies on the coffin,” wound up Jamie, doing his best to maintain a chastened tone. “Did ye catch the writin'—
' In remembrance of Lily Grant,
Who did her duty.'
Sir Andra's ain hand; an' Lily got nae mair than her due.”
When Jamie parted with Drumsheugh on the way home, and turned down the road to Mary's cottage, to give her the lilies and a full account of her lassie, Drumsheugh watched him till he disappeared.
“Thirty pund wes what he drew frae the Muirtown bank oot o' his savings, for the clerk telt me himsel, and naebody jalouses the trick. It 's the cleverest thing Jamie ever did, an' ane o' the best a've seen in Drumtochty.”
Drumtochty had a legitimate curiosity regarding the history of any new tenant, and Hillocks was invaluable on such occasion, being able to collect a complete biography during a casual conversation on the state of markets. No details of family or business were left out in the end, but there was an unwritten law of precedence, and Hillocks himself would not have condescended on the rent till he had satisfied himself as to the incomer's religion. Church connection was universal and unalterable in the Glen. When Lachlan Campbell had his argument with Carmichael, he still sat in his place in the Free Kirk, and although Peter Macintosh absented himself for a month from the Parish Kirk over the pew question, he was careful to explain to the doctor that he had not forgotten himself so far as to become a renegade.