Then he went off to lay hot stones to the feet of another, and to get a nurse for yet another. For twenty days he never slept and seldom ate, till the plague was stayed.
The last case was on the 27th of September. Then Abraham Ligartwood himself was stricken in one of the village hovels, and fell forward across a sick man's bed. They carried him to the manse of Dour, and wept as they went. The next day all the men that were alive in the parish of Dour stood about the minister's grave in the kirkyard on the hill. There was none there that could pray. But as they were about to separate, some one, it was never known who, raised the tune of the first Psalm. And the wind wafted to the weeping wives in the cottages of the stricken parish of Dour the sound of the hoarse and broken singing of men. In three weeks the minister had brought the evil parish of Dour into the presence of God.
And these were the words of their singing, while the gravediggers stood with the red earth ready on their spades, but before a clod fell on the minister's grave:--
"That man hath perfect blessedness Who walketh not astray In counsel of ungodly men, Nor stands in sinners' way, Nor sitteth in the scorner's chair; But placeth his delight Upon God's law, and meditates On his law day and night."
The new minister who succeeded had an easy time and a willing people. But he can never be to them what Abraham Ligartwood was. They graved on his tomb, and that with good cause, the words, "Here lyes a Man who never feared the face of Man."
_The lovers are whispering under thy shade, Grey Tower of Dalmeny! I leave them and wander alone in the glade Beneath thee, Dalmeny. Their thoughts are of all the bright years coming on, But mine are of days and of dreams that are gone; They see the fair flowers Spring has thrown on the grass, And the clouds in the blue light their eyes as they pass; But my feet are deep dawn in a drift of dead leaves, And I hear what they hear not--a lone bird that grieves. What matter? the end is not far for us all, And spring, through the summer, to winter must fall, And the lovers' light hearts, e'en as mine, will be laid, At last, and for ever, low under thy shade, Grey Tower of Dalmeny_.