offin, and the father of him who had wrought all
this woe was one of its supporters. The head of the murdered girl
rested, it might be said, on his shoulder--but none can know the
strength which God gives to his servants--and all present felt for him,
as he walked steadily under that dismal burden, a pity, and even an
affection, which they had been unable to yield to him ere he had been so
sorely tried. The Ladies from the Castle were among the other mourners,
and stood by the open grave. A sunnier day had never shone from heaven,
and that very grave itself partook of the brightness, as the
coffin--with the gilt letters, "Margaret Burnside, Aged 18"--was let
down, and in the darkness below disappeared. No flowers were sprinkled
there, nor afterwards planted on the turf--vain offerings, of unavailing
sorrow! But in that nook--beside the bodies of her poor parents--she was
left for the grass to grow over her, as over the other humble dead; and
nothing but the very simplest headstone was placed there, with a
sentence from Scripture below the name. There was less weeping, less
sobbing, than at many other funerals; for as sure as Mercy ruled the
skies, all believed that she was there--all knew it, just as if the
gates of heaven had opened and showed her a white-robed spirit at the
right hand of the throne. And why should any rueful lamentation have
been wailed over the senseless dust? But on the way home over the hills,
and in the hush of evening beside their hearths, and in the stillness of
night on their beds--all--young and old--all did nothing but weep.

For weeks--such was the pity, grief, and awe inspired by this portentous
crime and lamentable calamity, that all the domestic ongoings in all the
houses far and wide, were melancholy and mournful, as if the country had
been fearing a visitation of the plague. Sin, it was felt, had brought
not only sorrow on the parish, but shame that ages would not wipe away;
and strangers, as they travelled through the moor, would point the place
where the foulest murder had been committed in all the annals of crime.
As for the family at Moorside, the daughter had their boundless
compassion, though no eye had seen her since the funeral; but people, in
speaking of the father, would still shake their heads, and put their
fingers to their lips, and say to one another in whispers, that Gilbert
Adamson had once been a bold, bad man--that his religion, in spite of
all his repulsive austerity,