The coffin was removed from the hearse and placed upon two black trestles which had been set up just outside the town hall, where the body and those who had come with it were to remain until the bells began to toll and the pastor and the sexton were ready to go with them to the churchyard.
It was a stormy day. Rain came down in lashing showers and beat against the coffin. One thing was certain: it could never be said that fine weather had brought all these people out.
But that day nobody seemed to mind the rain and wind. People stood quietly and patiently under the open sky without seeking the shelter of either the church or the town hall.
The six pall-bearers and others who had gathered around Katrina noticed that there were two trestles there besides those on which her coffin rested. Then there was to be another burial that day. This they had not known of before. Yet no funeral procession could be seen approaching. It was already so late that it should have been at the church by that time.
When it was about ten minutes of ten o'clock and time to be moving toward the churchyard, the Ashdales folk noticed that every one withdrew in the direction of the Där Nol home, which was only two minutes' walk from the church. They saw then what they had not observed before, that the path leading from the town hall to the house of Där Nol was strewn with spruce twigs and that a spruce tree had been placed at either side of the gate. Then it was from there a body was to be taken. They wondered why nothing had been said about a death in a family of such prominence. Besides, there were no sheets put up at the windows, as there should be in a house of mourning.
Then, in a moment, the front doors opened and a funeral party emerged. First came August Där Nol, carrying a crêped mace. Behind him walked the six pall-bearers with the casket. And now all the people who had been standing outside the church fell into line behind this funeral party. Then it was in order to do honour to this person they had come.
The coffin was carried down to the town hall and placed beside the one already there. August Där Nol arranged the trestles so that the two coffins would rest side by side. The second coffin was not so new and shiny as Katrina's. It looked as if it had been washed by many rains, and had seen rough handling, for it was both scratched and broken at the edges.
All the folk from the Ashdales suddenly caught their breath. For then they knew it was not a Där Nol that lay in this coffin! And they also knew that it was not for the sake of some stranger of exalted rank that so many people had come out to church. Instantly every one looked at Glory Goldie, to see whether she understood. It was plain she did.
Glory Goldie, pale and heart-broken, had been standing all the while by her mother's coffin, and as she recognized the one that had been brought from the Där Nol home she was beside herself with joy as one becomes when gaining something for which one has long been striving. However, she immediately controlled her emotion. Then, smiling wistfully, she lightly stroked the lid of Katrina's coffin.
"Now it has turned out as well for you as ever you could have wished," she seemed to be saying to her dead mother.