THE HAPPY AND HONOURED CLOSE. 463 



it was the last. It was eighteen minutes past twelve. 

 Mrs. Allanach, who had been urgently sent for, and her 

 two daughters, then softly but eagerly entered the room on 

 which the great shadow had just descended. " I doo't he's 

 awa ! " said Mary Emslie. " He's gone," returned John 

 Taylor. " Oh, dear ! " burst out his old nurse, " it's sad I 

 su'dna hae seen the end, though I hae watched lang for't." 

 Then followed the strange dread silence felt at such a 

 moment, only broken, or rather more truly expressed, by 

 the ticking of the clock, which stood like a calm sentinel in 

 the corner of the room and repeated the inexorable tread 

 of time, now loudly audible though till then unheard. 

 The women looked at each other for a little with the silent 

 utterance of natural awe and emotion, and then began to 

 prepare for the last offices to the dead. 



Mr. Taylor soon after set out for Alford to make 

 arrangements for the funeral. A cold north-east wind was 

 then blowing, and the sky was overcast with heavy clouds, 

 recalling the chilling penury in which the life of the 

 departed had been spent. On his return, these had all 

 passed away, the day became clear and bright, and the 

 sun went down behind the hill above the cottage in unusual 

 glory. By the time he reached home, the orb of the 

 harvest moon hung in the south, large, round, and red. As 

 he entered the chamber of death, the moon looked in 

 through the little window in placid beauty, lighting up the 

 room, and flushing the pale face of his dead friend with a 

 touching halo, as he lay stretched on the table in the centre, 

 beneath the snow-white linen that now shrouded him. The 

 sweet evening light and the double beams of sun and 

 moon that had gilded the scene, were beautiful and appro- 



