And chuckling a low chuckle, Mrs Catanach moved for her own door.
As soon as the churchyard was clear of the funeral-train, the mad laird peeped from behind a tall stone, gazed cautiously around him, and then with slow steps came and stood over the new-made grave, where the sexton was now laying the turf, “to mak a’ snod (trim) for the Sawbath.”
“Whaur is she gane till?” he murmured to himself.—He could generally speak better when merely uttering his thoughts without attempt at communication.—“I dinna ken whaur I cam frae, an’ I dinna ken whaur she’s gane till; but whan I gang mysel’, maybe I’ll ken baith. —I dinna ken, I dinna ken, I dinna ken whaur I cam frae.”
Thus muttering, so lost in the thoughts that originated them that he spoke the words mechanically, he left the churchyard and returned to the school, where, under the superintendence of Malcolm, everything had been going on in the usual Saturday fashion—the work of the day which closed the week’s labours, being to repeat a certain number of questions of the Shorter Catechism (which term, alas! included the answers), and next to buttress them with a number of suffering caryatids, as it were—texts of Scripture, I mean, first petrified and then dragged into the service. Before Mr Graham returned, every one had done his part except Sheltie, who, excellent at asking questions for himself, had a very poor memory for the answers to those of other people, and was in consequence often a keepie-in. He did not generally heed it much, however, for the master was not angry with him on such occasions, and they gave him an opportunity of asking in his turn a multitude of questions of his own.
When he entered, he found Malcolm reading The Tempest and Sheltie sitting in the middle of the waste schoolroom, with his elbows on the desk before him, and his head and the Shorter Catechism between them; while in the farthest corner sat Mr Stewart, with his eyes fixed on the ground, murmuring his answerless questions to himself.
“Come up, Sheltie,” said Mr Graham, anxious to let the boy go. “Which of the questions did you break down in to-day?”
“Please, sir, I cudna rest i’ my grave till the resurrection,” answered Sheltie, with but a dim sense of the humour involved in the reply.
“‘What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?’” said Mr Graham, putting the question with a smile.
“‘The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection,’” replied Sheltie, now with perfect accuracy; whereupon the master, fearing the outbreak of a torrent of counter-questions, made haste to dismiss him.
“That’ll do, Sheltie,” he said. “Run home to your dinner.”