It was from deference to him that the carpenter had assumed a mental position generating a poetic mood and utterance quite unusual with him, for he was a jolly, careless kind of fellow, well-meaning and good-hearted.
So together they lifted the last covering of the dead, laid it over him, and fastened it down.

And there was darkness about the dead; but he knew it not, because he was full of light.

For this man was one who, all his life, had striven to be better.
Meantime, the clergyman having arrived, the usual religious ceremonial of a Scotch funeral--the reading of the Word and prayer--was going on below.

This was all that gave the burial any sacred solemnity; for at the grave the Scotch terror of Popery forbids any observance of a religious character.

The voice of the reader was heard in the chamber of death.
"The minister's come, Thamas." "Come or gang," said Thomas, "it's muckle the same.