“Confound that horrible noise!” said the lieutenant, at last jumping up and shutting his novel with a bang. “It sets my teeth on edge, and rasps every nerve in my body. Let us go out and smoke in the open air before turning in!”
We lighted our pipes and went forth, turning our steps toward the barn. Half a dozen wolves sat around the building, looking like professional mourners, and moaning their hunger-melancholy moans. We were close to them before they would move. One of them was so hunger-bold that he stood at bay for a moment, and the lieutenant thought it necessary to draw his pistol and cock it. The click was enough for the wolf, who dashed off at once, growling with head still turned towards us, and teeth shining in a parting snarl. After smoking we proceeded upstairs, to a cold, cheerless, unfurnished room, and betook us to our blankets. The wind howled dismally through the unglazed sashes. We sought positions the least exposed to cross-draughts. Spreading our blankets on the floor, unswept except by the wind, we lay down to such rest as excitement, fatigue, and youth can bring.
We did not rise so early next morning as might be supposed from a calm consideration of our sleeping accommodations. We were up in time for breakfast, however. It was a good one, and we enjoyed it. After its conclusion arrangements were made for the burial of MacSorley. It was decided that he should be buried on the top of a high mound within about a thousand yards of the station.
The funeral cortége was neither large nor imposing. It consisted of Mr. Bunter, two or three stage drivers and stock-tenders, the lieutenant, the sergeant, and the writer. The guards, excepting those necessary to protect the station, were out, posted around on commanding eminences to prevent a surprise.
The grave was already dug. The rough substitute for a coffin, drawn to the place of interment on a hayrack, was covered with its earthy bed as tenderly as possible.
Bunter had asked the lieutenant to read prayers at the grave; and the latter had consented. But there was no prayer-book to be found at the station. Bunter requested the lieutenant to improvise a prayer for the dead, when one of the men began shovelling the earth into the grave.
“Hold on, Jack!” said Bunter, “the lieutenant’s goin’ to say a prayer.”
Jack “held on,” looking rather astonished at this unusual delay.
The lieutenant threw earth upon the coffin, repeating, with a voice full of emotion, such devotional passages, appropriate to the occasion, as occurred to him, ending with the simple but all-including words of the church: “May God have mercy on his soul!”
Jack, supposing it unnecessary to “hold on” any longer, commenced pitching in the clay with the rather out-of-place energy usually displayed in the performance of that last duty.