So it happened that though the pastoral valley had considerably changed its face, and had much of its ruggedness smoothed away in the course of years, this stretch of heather remained unreclaimed. It was still a thoroughfare, but a very safe one now, for its only dwelling was a grave.
On the day after Geordie's death Grace had gone to see the last resting-place destined for him in the little village churchyard. It was a dreary patch of ground which looked as if the suns ray's never penetrated through its high walls on the graves below. Crumbling grey-lichened headstones peeped dismally from among the long dank grass, and the little paths were overgrown with weeds. Everywhere there were traces of unloving carelessness of the dead. And though Grace knew full well that the silent sleepers below little heeded this selfish forgetfulness, these surroundings sent a chill to her heart. She thought she should like all that was left here of her boy-friend to lie in pleasanter places. Far better he should rest underneath the heathery sod among the pleasant breezy knolls, consecrated by many a heavenward thought of the lonely little herd-boy, and by faithful words spoken in an accepted time to a wayward brother's heart. So Grace made her suit to the old farmer at a time when his heart was softened, and he was not unwilling to part with a spot written over with a stinging memory. Miss Hume, without even consulting Mr. Graham, had agreed to the transfer of the land; and so it happened that Grace, like the patriarch long ago, a stranger and sojourner in the land, held as a possession a burying-place.
The bright summer day had reached its dying hour when the little group stood on the bank of the river. The yellow sunlight was merging into deep orange and crimson, tinging with a wonderful variety of tints the lower landscape. The rippling water looked as if a sudden cross current of red wine had come flowing into it, and the little hillocks beyond, golden with gorse, were steeped in the mellow light.
The children followed their mother and Jean, with awed faces and hushed voices, along the little gleaming sheep-walk, fringed by sweet wild thyme and dog violets, with tendrils of deerhorn moss flinging their arms across the path. At length they came on a little marble slab, by the side of one of the knolls. The last golden shafts of sunlight were stealing over its memorial words, and the young eyes read in silence:—
IN MEMORY OF
GEORDIE BAXTER,
Who went to the Fold above on the
7th of August, 185—.
"The Lord is my Shepherd;
I shall not want."