a measure of worldly position, of pressure, had held in abeyance,
germinated in his disorganized mind, his bitter sense of injustice and
injury. He hardened, grew defiant ... the strain of lawlessness brought so
many years before from warring Scotch highlands rose bright and
troublesome in him.

XVIII

Clare's body was brought back to Greenstream on the following day. His
sister and her numerous brood descended solicitously upon Gordon later;
neighbors, kindly and officious, arrived ... Clare was laid out. There
were sibilant, whispered conversations about a mislaid petticoat with a
mechlin hem; drawers were searched and the missing garment triumphantly
unearthed; silk mitts were discussed, discarded; the white shoes--real
buck and a topnotch article--forced on. At last Clare was exhibited in the
room that had been hers. There was no place in the Makimmon dwelling for
general assemblage but the kitchen, and it had been pointed out by certain
delicate souls that the body and the preparations for the funeral repast
would accord but doubtfully. Besides, the kitchen was too hot.

Clare's peaked, blue-white countenance was withdrawn and strange above a
familiar, harsh black silk dress; her hands, folded upon her flat breast,
lay in a doubled attitude dreadfully impossible to life. A thin locket of
gold hung on a chain about her still throat. The odor of June roses that
filled the corners, a subdued, red riot of the summer, the sun without,
was overpowering.

As the hour appointed for the funeral approached a gratifying number of
people assembled: the women clustered about the porch, hovered about the
door which opened upon the remains; while the men gathered in a group
above the stream, lingered by the fence. A row of dusty, hooded vehicles,
rough-coated, intelligent horses, were hitched above.

The minister took his station by a table on which a glass of water had
been placed upon a vivid red cover: he portentously cleared his throat.
"The Lord giveth," he began.... It was noon, pellucidly clear, still, hot;
the foliage on the mountainsides was like solid walls of greenery rising
to a canopy, a veil, of azure. Partridges whistled clear and flutelike
from a nearby cover; the stream flashed in the sun, mirroring on its
unwrinkled surface the stiff, somber figures gathered for the funeral.

The droning voice of the preacher drew out interminably through the
sultry, golden hour. Women sniffed sharply, dabbled with