"Where shall we bury them?" asked Donal.
"In Englan'," said the housekeeper, "I used to hear a heap aboot
consecrated ground; but to my min' it was the bodies o' God's
handiwark, no the bishop, that consecrated the ground. Whaur the
Lord lays doon what he has done wi', wad aye be a sacred place to
me. I daursay Moses, whan he cam upo' 't again i' the desert, luikit
upo' the ground whaur stood the buss that had burned, as a sacred
place though the fire was lang oot!--Thinkna ye, Mr. Grant?"
"I do," answered Donal. "But I do not believe the Lord Jesus thought
one spot on the face of the earth more holy than another: every dust
of it was his father's, neither more nor less, existing only by the
thought of that father! and I think that is what we must come
to.--But where shall we bury them?--where they lie, or in the
garden?"
"Some wud doobtless hae dist laid to dist i' the kirkyard; but I
wudna wullin'ly raise a clash i' the country-side. Them that did it
was yer ain forbeirs, my leddy; an' sic things are weel forgotten.
An' syne what wud the earl say? It micht upset him mair nor a bit!
I'll consider o' 't."
Donal accompanied them to the door of the chamber which again they
shared, and then betook himself to his own high nest. There more
than once in what remained of the night, he woke, fancying he heard
the ghost-music sounding its coronach over the dead below.
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