Thomasina a grand burial this very day. I know just the satin box at home that will do for the casket. We’ll put in the young heather for her to lie on, which is as soft as down—well, almost, anyway. Are you listening to me, Mary Ruadh?”
She was. The agony of sobs began to diminish and when she raised her head and tear-brightened eyes from the gray-green sward of old moss and roots, the anger and mistrust had gone from them. There was definite interest.
Hughie pressed the advantage thus won and at the same time began to fire his own vivid imagination, for even as he invented and improvised to divert the unhappy child, the idea began to sound most promising and might result in a “do” that would be talked about by his companions in Inveranoch for a long while to come.
“Look you, Mary Ruadh,” he cried, “we will have a procession through the town as long as when Lachlan Dougal was buried and you shall wear widow’s mournings and walk directly behind the casket, weeping.”
Mary Ruadh was now frankly interested in the proposal. She picked herself up and knelt facing Hughie, so that the body of Thomasina lay between them, unnoticed. “Will I wear a veil and a black shawl? Mrs. McKenzie has a black shawl.”
“Of course,” Hughie assented, delighted with the results he was achieving and more and more carried away with his idea, “I’m sure I can find you a veil of mother’s. We’ll have the funeral this very day in the afternoon. I’ll ask Geordie McNabb, and Iain will bring his brothers and sisters and others from the school.”
Mary Ruadh asked, “Can the dustman come?”
“Well, no,” Hughie replied, “he’d very likely be working—”
Then as the child’s face fell, he had another brilliant inspiration. “Do ye ken Jamie Braid, the son of Sergeant Braid, father’s piper? He’s been learning the pipes and already has unco’ skill. We’ll have him. Can ye no’ see Jamie in his kilts with his ain wee pipes (Hughie when he became excited was apt to drop somewhat into the local way of speech), wi’ the ribbons flying and his bonnet set saucily upon his knob, piping Macintosh’s Lament?”
Mary Ruadh was quite enchanted now. Her eyes were as round as half-crown pieces and tears no longer flowed from them.
Hughie continued: “Well, and I’ll wear my formal kilts with skean dhu and sporran and every one on the street will turn his head as we go by and say, ‘There goes the poor widow MacDhui, a-burying of her dearest Thomasina, God rest her soul, foully done to death—’ ”
“Really truly, Hughie?”
“Oh yes,” the boy promised, “and I’ll tell you something more.” He was now beginning to be intoxicated by his success, not only in distracting his unhappy friend, but at the same time organizing a splendid afternoon’s entertainment, far better than the somewhat tame picnic he originally projected. “We’ll make a headboard!”
“What is a headboard?”
“Well, it’s a kind of a thing like a gravestone when you are in a hurry. It tells about the person who is buried there.” Here his own blue eyes widened and he ran his fingers through his crisp, dark hair, seized by the throes of literary composition and quite forgetting his prior judgment rendered upon the assassination, namely that Mr. MacDhui probably had no alternative but to put the cat out of its misery. “We’ll print on it, ‘Here lies THOMASINA— MURDERED July 26,1957.’ ”
Mary Ruadh’s gaze was brimming with worship. The word “murdered” had the proper ring to it and filled her with a curious satisfaction. She looked down now upon the still form of Thomasina; gloomy retrospect enveloped her once more as the memory of the morning’s events returned and out of it she pronounced sentence: “I’m not going to speak to Daddy ever again.”
Hughie nodded absently. Mary’s family vendettas were her own affair and none of his concern as long as they did not impinge upon the grandiose funeral,
She was. The agony of sobs began to diminish and when she raised her head and tear-brightened eyes from the gray-green sward of old moss and roots, the anger and mistrust had gone from them. There was definite interest.
Hughie pressed the advantage thus won and at the same time began to fire his own vivid imagination, for even as he invented and improvised to divert the unhappy child, the idea began to sound most promising and might result in a “do” that would be talked about by his companions in Inveranoch for a long while to come.
“Look you, Mary Ruadh,” he cried, “we will have a procession through the town as long as when Lachlan Dougal was buried and you shall wear widow’s mournings and walk directly behind the casket, weeping.”
Mary Ruadh was now frankly interested in the proposal. She picked herself up and knelt facing Hughie, so that the body of Thomasina lay between them, unnoticed. “Will I wear a veil and a black shawl? Mrs. McKenzie has a black shawl.”
“Of course,” Hughie assented, delighted with the results he was achieving and more and more carried away with his idea, “I’m sure I can find you a veil of mother’s. We’ll have the funeral this very day in the afternoon. I’ll ask Geordie McNabb, and Iain will bring his brothers and sisters and others from the school.”
Mary Ruadh asked, “Can the dustman come?”
“Well, no,” Hughie replied, “he’d very likely be working—”
Then as the child’s face fell, he had another brilliant inspiration. “Do ye ken Jamie Braid, the son of Sergeant Braid, father’s piper? He’s been learning the pipes and already has unco’ skill. We’ll have him. Can ye no’ see Jamie in his kilts with his ain wee pipes (Hughie when he became excited was apt to drop somewhat into the local way of speech), wi’ the ribbons flying and his bonnet set saucily upon his knob, piping Macintosh’s Lament?”
Mary Ruadh was quite enchanted now. Her eyes were as round as half-crown pieces and tears no longer flowed from them.
Hughie continued: “Well, and I’ll wear my formal kilts with skean dhu and sporran and every one on the street will turn his head as we go by and say, ‘There goes the poor widow MacDhui, a-burying of her dearest Thomasina, God rest her soul, foully done to death—’ ”
“Really truly, Hughie?”
“Oh yes,” the boy promised, “and I’ll tell you something more.” He was now beginning to be intoxicated by his success, not only in distracting his unhappy friend, but at the same time organizing a splendid afternoon’s entertainment, far better than the somewhat tame picnic he originally projected. “We’ll make a headboard!”
“What is a headboard?”
“Well, it’s a kind of a thing like a gravestone when you are in a hurry. It tells about the person who is buried there.” Here his own blue eyes widened and he ran his fingers through his crisp, dark hair, seized by the throes of literary composition and quite forgetting his prior judgment rendered upon the assassination, namely that Mr. MacDhui probably had no alternative but to put the cat out of its misery. “We’ll print on it, ‘Here lies THOMASINA— MURDERED July 26,1957.’ ”
Mary Ruadh’s gaze was brimming with worship. The word “murdered” had the proper ring to it and filled her with a curious satisfaction. She looked down now upon the still form of Thomasina; gloomy retrospect enveloped her once more as the memory of the morning’s events returned and out of it she pronounced sentence: “I’m not going to speak to Daddy ever again.”
Hughie nodded absently. Mary’s family vendettas were her own affair and none of his concern as long as they did not impinge upon the grandiose funeral,
Similar Books
