"It's a pity," said she, "you brought no grave-clothes with you from Mull, my dear."
"Are you grudging me yours?" asked Aoirig, coming round from wandering.
"No, nor grudging; fine ye ken it, cousin. But I know ye have them, and it's a pity you should be dressed in another's spinning than your own."
"Ay, they're yonder sure enough: clean and ready. And there's more than that beside them. The linen I should have brought to a man's home."
"You and your man's home! Is it Duart, my dear, among your own folk, or down to Inishail, you would have us take you?" Aoirig coughed till the red froth was at her lips.
"Duart is homely and Inishail is holy, sure enough, but I would have it Kilmalieu. They tell me it's a fine kirkyard; but I never had the luck to see it."
"It's well enough, I'll not deny, and it would not be so far to take you. Our folk have a space of their own among the MacVicars, below the parson."
The woman in the bed signed for a sip of water, and they had it fast at her lips.
"Could you be putting me near the Macnicols?" she asked in a weakening voice. "The one I speak of was a Macnicol."
"Ay, ay," said the goodwife; "they were aye gallant among the girls."
"Gallant he was," said the one among the blankets. "I see him now. The best man ever I saw. It was at a wedding----"
The woman's breast racked and the spume spattered over the home-spun blankets.
Maisie was heating a death-shift at the peat-fire, turning it over in her hands, letting the dry airs into every seam and corner.
Looking at her preparation, the dying woman caught back her breath to ask why such trouble with a dead-shift.
"Ye would not have it on damp and cold," said Maisie, settling the business. "I doubt it'll be long in the sleeves, woman, for the goodwife has a lengthy reach."
"It was at a marriage in Glenurchy," said Aoirig in a haver, the pillows slipping down behind her back. "Yonder he is. A slim straight lad. Ronnal, O Ronnal my hero! What a dancer! not his match in Mull. Aye so----"
A foot could be heard on the road, and one of the two sisters ran out, for she knew whom it would be. They had sent word to the town by Solomon in the morning for Macnicol the wright to come up with the stretching-board, thinking there was but an hour more for poor Macnicol's were the footsteps, and there he was with the stretching-board under his arm--a good piece of larch rubbed smooth by sheet and shroud, and a little hollow worn at the head. He was a fat man, rolling a bit to one side on a short leg, gross and flabby at the jowl, and thick-lipped; but he might have been a swanky lad in his day, and there was a bit of good-humour in the corner of his eye, where you will never see it when one has been born with the uneasy mind. He was humming to himself as he came up the brae a Badenoch ditty they have in these parts on the winter nights, gossiping round the fire. Whom he was going to stretch he had no notion, except that it was a woman and a stranger to the glen.