He came out of a muse to discover that he had somehow failed to turn into the right road. At intervals the ridge of Clovie came into sight, the kirk and the manse set on it like sunlit toys, and the dark sycamores cloaking its side. Presently some toy figures were added, sitting on the wall of the graveyard, as was the Clovie wont with a funeral in prospect. After that the ridge did not reappear for some time, and when it did it was perceptibly farther away. There was nothing for it but to turn the car and go back, and even so, ten to one they would be late. Flustered, and with his private woe of exile, Archie was additionally vexed by a consciousness that there was something he ought to tell Veronica, something that had stirred in his mind when it took her two telegraph posts to remember Martin, and which should be imparted before they reached Clovie. Now they were nearly there. They had passed the old quarry, and he could see the river skulking along at its summer pace. What on earth was it? And what on earth was that notice at the side of the road? Narrow Bridge. Of course the bridge was narrow. It had always been narrow—but these newcome officials defaced everything with their notice-boards. By going very fast over the bridge one got a good start up the further slope, and they would be in time for the funeral after all. He heard the noise of the river rattling over the shoal, and remembered what it was he must tell Veronica. He must explain about Baxter. If she were thinking of marrying again it might give her a nasty turn to see Hew 211in duplicate walking after the coffin. She’d think he wasn’t dead.

Before he had parked the car to his satisfaction, Veronica was out of it, and into the graveyard, and making for the door of the kirk. In a moment she’d be inside, and down on her knees.

‘Veronica, stop! You can’t go in till the corpse does. And there’s something I meant to tell you. It’s about Baxter. Did Martin ever happen to mention anything about him?’

‘Of course he did. He could scarcely lodge under the man’s roof, summer after summer, and not mention him.’

Baulked of her prayers, she was naturally irate, and what he had to impart was not likely to soothe her. But there was no time for beating about the bush.

‘But did he ever say anything about Baxter’s looks? No? Well, Baxter’s an excellent chap. But he and Hew were as alike as two peas. Quite remarkable—but not so very remarkable when you come to think of it. He was Hew’s brother.’

‘Brother?’

‘On the wrong side of the blanket, you know. It’s quite customary in these small places,’ he added.

A man looked over the wall and called out, ‘They’re coming.’ The Reverend Mr Guthrie appeared from the manse and entered the graveyard by his personal gate. Archie pulled Veronica away, as if they had been stealing gooseberries, and hurried her back to the road. Emerging from the cover of the sycamores, the small procession came up to the bare summit of the ridge as if it were coming up 212on to a stage or a scaffold. A farm-waggon, with the coffin on it, and an old man leading the horse; after the waggon, Martin, walking alone; then Baxter and his three sons, and after them a small tail of Clovie farmers and graziers, and the postmaster and the policeman. The waggon halted, the coffin was lifted off, and the four Baxters shouldered it. Veronica stepped forward with a maternal gesture, exclaiming ‘Martin!’ Martin’s glance did not swerve from the coffin as he signalled her and Archie to fall in behind him. Every face was shining with sweat, and Mr Guthrie’s white hairs glittered like the dried grasses of the field which he was presently to invoke. Poor old Hew, thought Archie. Hew was no more than fifty, but nothing ages a man more rapidly than being dead.