"
Her face turned the colour of ashes, and with hanging cheeks and
scared but not the less wicked eyes, she turned from the room.
Malcolm watched her out of the house, then following her into the
town, brought Miss Horn back with him to aid in the last of earthly
services, and hastened to Duncan's cottage.
But to his amazement and distress, it was forsaken, and the hearth
cold. In his attendance on his father, he had not seen the piper
--he could not remember for how many days; and on inquiry he found
that, although he had not been missed, no one could recall having
seen him later than three or four days agone. The last he could
hear of him in the neighbourhood was, that, about a week before,
a boy had spied him sitting on a rock in the Baillies' Barn, with
his pipes in his lap. Searching the cottage, he found that his
broadsword and dirk, with all his poor finery, were gone.
That same night Mrs Catanach also disappeared.
A week after, what was left of Lord Lossie was buried. Malcolm
followed the hearse with the household. Miss Horn walked immediately
behind him, on the arm of the schoolmaster. It was a great funeral,
with a short road, for the body was laid in the church--close to
the wall, just under the crusader with the Norman canopy.
Lady Florimel wept incessantly for three days; on the fourth she
looked out on the sea and thought it very dreary; on the fifth she
found a certain gratification in hearing herself called the marchioness;
on the sixth she tried on her mourning, and was pleased; on the
seventh she went with the funeral and wept again; on the eighth
came Lady Bellair, who on the ninth carried her away.
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