Searching
for miles in the moonlight, he had, with eye and hand, chosen out
patches of this grass, the shortest and thickest he could find, and
with a pocket knife, often in pieces of only a few inches, removed
the best of it and carried it home, to be fitted on the heap, and
with every ministration and blandishment enticed to flourish. He
pressed it down with soft firm hands, and beshowered it with water
first warmed a little in his mouth; when the air was soft, he guided
the wind to blow upon it; and as the sun could not reach it where
it lay, he gathered a marvellous heap of all the bright sherds he
could find--of crockery and glass and mirror, so arranging them
in the window, that each threw its tiny reflex upon the turf.
With this last contrivance, Phemy was specially delighted; and the
laird, happy as a child in beholding her delight, threw himself in
an ecstasy on the mound and clasped it in his arms. I can hardly
doubt that he regarded it as representing his own grave, to which
in his happier moods he certainly looked forward as a place of
final and impregnable refuge.
As he lay thus, foreshadowing his burial, or rather his resurrection,
a young canary which had flown from one of the cottages, flitted in
with a golden shiver and flash, and alighted on his head. He took
it gently in his hand and committed it to Phemy to carry home, with
many injunctions against disclosing how it had been captured.
His lonely days were spent in sleep, in tending his plants, or in
contriving defences; but in all weathers he wandered out at midnight,
and roamed or rested among fields or rocks till the first signs of
the breaking day, when he hurried like a wild creature to his den.
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