“What train will the coffin come by? Reply paid.”
“Whose coffin? Don’t know what you mean. Aleck nearly well.”
The whole village has had three points under discussion ever since.
II. Can a man be made to pay for his own grave being dug when he refuses to occupy it?
III. And what is to become of the mourning anyhow?
I WAS reminded of the funeral when I arrived at the valley station one spring morning, by the fact that it was “the remains” who opened the carriage door for me and helped us out with our things.
He was home for a few days’ leave, looking very smart and upright in his uniform; and he saluted (even though he permitted himself to smile) when I gave him a half-crown, telling him to buy himself a wreath.
The white-painted garden gate had been placed wide open by way of welcome. We had left behind us, in town, weather that called itself the end of March, but in reality ought to have been January; we arrived at the little cottage to find that the calendar had taken a leap forward, for here it was like the end of April. On the grey stone walls beside the gate clumps of wallflowers were in bloom—masses of pale primrose flowers mixed with those of a rich rose-purple variety; only these two sorts had been planted in the chinks of this particular wall. I am sure the dear things nodded at us as we entered.
All over the garden were more wallflowers bursting by the thousand into bloom. Some beds were a mixture of clear bright yellow flowers, combined with the sort that are a deep mahogany, looking as though they were made of velvet; other beds had a pretty rose-pink variety; while on the top of more walls, and in corners and patches about the garden, were the old-fashioned “streaky” kinds, all aglow with brown and yellow.
The long bed in front of the porch, given over to cowslips, oxlips, polyanthus, auriculas, and suchlike homely flowers, was very gay. The polyanthus were a delightful medley of claret colour, pink, brown, crimson, orange, yellow, most of them looking as though the edges of the petals had been buttonholed around with silk of a contrasting colour. It seemed as though the flowers in this bed fairly tip-toed as we came along the path, and stretched their necks as high as ever they could, from out of their crinkled leaves, to show how remarkably fine they were.