Gratitude to God for a life ended ere I fell from His grace, ere
temptation entangled me beyond deliverance; humble pride in the
honorable traditions that I had received and followed untainted; deep,
reverent thankfulness for the strength vouchsafed me in this supreme
crisis of my life--the strength of a madman, perhaps, but still strength
to be true, the power to renounce--these were the meditations that
brought me rest and a quietude I had never known when death seemed a
long way off and life on earth eternal.
The setting sun crimsoned the pines; the riders were gathered along the
hill-side, bending far out in their saddles to scan the valley below.
McCraw, his white face bound with a bloody rag, drew his straight
claymore and wound the tattered tartan around his wrist, motioning Billy
Bones to ride on.
"March!" he cried, in his shrill voice, laying his claymore level; and
the long files moved off, spurs and scabbards clanking, horses crowding
and trampling in, faster and faster, till a far command set them
trotting, then galloping away into the west, where the kindling sky
reddened the world.
The world!--it would be the same to-morrow without me: that maple-tree
would not have changed a leaf; that tiny, hovering, gauze-winged
creature, drifting through the calm air, would be alive when I was dead.
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