SEPTEMBER 241 



has gone down under the power before which all 

 mortals must bow. No more the maids shall tremble 

 under her rebuke; no more her stiff silk shall rustle 

 in the long passages; no more shall she reckon her 

 legions of white jars in which it was her pride to store 

 the fruit of so many summers and autumns. She has 

 died at her post, with the keys of office in her hand, 

 and they are about to bring her out of the front door 

 to her burial. 



The scene is grimly simple. On the gravel sweep 

 before the house are gathered a hundred or so of sable 

 figures ; all men, of course, according to the ancient but 

 unwritten law which keeps women behind drawn blinds 

 on these occasions. The laird is there, and some of his 

 tenants, a few tradesmen from the village, and the 

 fellow-servants of the departed. The fair park stretches 

 away to the sloping woods, among which lies the lake 

 a broad silver shield beneath drifting clouds. On 

 the lawn, just behind the mourners, my eye rests on a 

 suggestive, though inanimate, group of two. A tall 

 grey pillar-stone, one of those disc-headed crosses of 

 the early Celtic Church, covered with intricate orna- 

 ment on every inch of surface, seems to repeat the 

 message intrusted to it by pious hands a thousand 

 years ago the message of peace on earth and goodwill 

 towards men. Close beside it is a very different object, 

 charged with another message. This also is orna- 

 mented : it bears the Russian eagle, for it once formed 

 part of the armament of the Great Redan of Sebastopol, 

 peace and goodwill among men being scarcely the 

 Q 



