There was no contending with this burst of sorrow and natural affection.Oldbuck had repeated recourse to his snuff-box to conceal the tears which, despite his shrewd and caustic temper, were apt to start on such occasions.The female assistants whimpered, the men held their bonnets to their faces, and spoke apart with each other.The clergyman, meantime, addressed his ghostly consolation to the aged grandmother.
At first she listened, or seemed to listen, to what he said, with the apathy of her usual unconsciousness.But as, in pressing this theme, he approached so near to her ear that the sense of his words became distinctly intelligible to her, though unheard by those who stood more distant, her countenance at once assumed that stern and expressive cast which characterized her intervals of intelligence.She drew up her head and body, shook her head in a manner that showed at least impatience, if not scorn of his counsel, and waved her hand slightly, but with a gesture so expressive, as to indicate to all who witnessed it a marked and disdainful rejection of the ghostly consolation proffered to her.The minister stepped back as if repulsed, and, by lifting gently and dropping his hand, seemed to show at once wonder, sorrow, and compassion for her dreadful state of mind.The rest of the company sympathized, and a stifled whisper went through them, indicating how much her desperate and determined manner impressed them with awe, and even horror.
In the meantime, the funeral company was completed, by the arrival of one or two persons who had been expected from Fairport.The wine and spirits again circulated, and the dumb show of greeting was anew interchanged.The grandame a second time took a glass in her hand, drank its contents, and exclaimed, with a sort of laugh,--``Ha! ha! I hae tasted wine twice in ae day--Whan did I that before, think ye, cummers?
--Never since''-- and the transient glow vanishing from her countenance, she set the glass down, and sunk upon the settle from whence she had risen to snatch at it.
As the general amazement subsided, Mr.Oldbuck, whose heart bled to witness what he considered as the errings of the enfeebled intellect struggling with the torpid chill of age and of sorrow, observed to the clergyman that it was time to proceed with the ceremony.The father was incapable of giving directions, but the nearest relation of the family made a sign to the carpenter, who in such cases goes through the duty of the undertaker, to proceed in his office.The creak of the screw-nails presently announced that the lid of the last mansion of mortality was in the act of being secured above its tenant.