But there
was plenty of help to be had from the village and the neighbouring farms.
Most of them were now ready, but a good many men were still at work. The
brown hillocks lay all about the church-yard--the mole-heaps of burrowing
Death.
The stranger looked around him. His face grew critical. He stepped a little
hither and thither. At length he turned to me and said--
"I wadna like to be greedy; but gin ye wad lat her lie next the kirk
there--i' that neuk, I wad tak' it kindly. And syne gin ever it cam' aboot
that I cam' here again, I wad ken whaur she was. Could ye get a sma' bit
heidstane putten up? I wad leave the siller wi' ye to pay for't."
"To be sure I can. What will you have put on the stone?"
"Ow jist--let me see--Maggie Jamieson--nae Marget, but jist Maggie. She was
aye Maggie at home. Maggie Jamieson, frae her father. It's the last thing I
can gie her. Maybe ye micht put a verse o' Scripter aneath't, ye ken."
"What verse would you like?"
He thought for a little.
"Isna there a text that says, 'The deid shall hear his voice'?"
"Yes: 'The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God.
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