She vanished into the adjoining room and reappeared with yet another chair, the last the croft contained. The newcomer entered, bending his head under the low lintel.

“Ay, it’s the sad, sad day for you”, he said in a muted voice. Silence fell again on the company.

The elder brother of the dead man leant over the fire and tossed a couple of peats into the heart of it. The dancing flames threw upon the ceiling a grotesque shadow of his long, crouched form. “Out, Sluain”, he commanded, pushing the dog aside. Sluain stirred its shaggy body and looked at him with large, sorrowful eyes. Slinking closer to the coffin, it stretched its head upon its paws. In the silence the clock ticked heavily.

“Will there be any more coming?” the joiner asked in subdued tones.

The younger brother looked round the apartment and began dully to enumerate those present.

“There’ll be Neil Garvaig”, said the smith, “and Iain Post.” He had to sink his deep bass to a grumble in his attempt to speak softly like the others. “But I doubt if they’ll manage: the road at the point is three feet in snow yet, and the burn’s in spate.”

“Shall we begin then?” the minister suggested.

Throughout the kitchen there was an immediate shuffling. Marsali took down the lamp and lit it with a sprig of heather; for, although it was only a little after noon, the one tiny window set deep in the wall did not give light enough to pierce the steam that rose from the drying clothes of the mourners.

All stood for a moment, staring down uneasily upon the white face of the corpse. The silken black beard and long locks had been carefully combed into unfamiliar nobility. The body, twisted and contorted in life, was now straight and impressively long in its white sheet. In the shadow of the coffin the smooth, majestically rounded brow seemed remote from all the world.

“Ay, he’s gone now”, said old Rory; and on his lips the commonplace words lost their banality. “Poor fellow, he suffered long.

“Twenty years”, said the younger brother. He set his hands on the table and leaned forward, his tough little frame sagging. “Twenty years”, he added in his slow, ruminative way, “and every day of it a day of pain.”

The tall, fair man beside him sighed. “And the strongest man on the island in his day, they say”, he murmured reflectively.

Marsali paused in the dimmest corner by the foot of the stair and set the dead man’s sticks upright.

It was the older brother who answered: “As tall as yourself, Coll Miller, and as light in the foot. He would take the boat into the Port in the wildest storm that ever blew. Never a man like him for the lobsters. And would whistle a tune with a two-hundredweight sack on his back.”

“The ways of the Lord are strange”, said the minister. “To come upon him in a moment in the pride of his strength, it was truly a trial of faith.”

“Poor Angus!” said the smith. “A burden to himself and for all connected to him for twenty long years.”

“He wasn’t much trouble”, said Marsali from the shadows in a level, unemotional voice. “Only to dress him in the morning and give him his bite of food.”

“It was a sore trial to you for all that”, the smith urged sympathetically. “Him neither able to walk nor yet to feed himself properly.”

“And that’s the truth to it”, said the young main whom they called the miller. “For his own sake, poor fellow, he’s well away.”

The elder brother moved to the minister’s side by the head of the coffin. After the waking of the corpse his eyes were heavy from want of sleep. “Just like a child was Angus”, he said. “It travelled up year by year from the spine to the brain, just as the old doctor said it would. He would hobble out in the morning with his stick in one hand and holding by the wall with the other, and he would let himself down, or sometimes fall down, at the gable end and lie there in the sun. Never could we get him to keep to his bed or stay by the fire.”

The old man who sat on the oak chest by the window wagged his head feebly. “It’s you that’s had the heavy end of it, Marsali.” He talked indistinctly with toothless gums. “Morning and night, and never a minute’s rest for twenty years. You that might have been well married; for you were a bonny lass then.”

An awkward silence fell on all those present. Marsali twisted a towel between her coarse hands. “There’s more married than are doing well”, she responded briefly. “I was needed here”.

Heads nodded, voices droned in agreement. The service began. In the little, overcrowded room the listened drowsily to the familiar readings from the Old and New Testaments; years of repetition had drained away all inflection or emotion from the minister’s voice.

“Ay, ay, but you’ll have an easier time now” the old man mumbled on. “It’s God’s will; and it’s maybe better for himself and you too that he’s away.”

Heads nodded, voices droned in agreement. The service began. In the little, overcrowded room the listened drowsily to the familiar readings from the Old and New Testaments; years of repetition had drained away all inflection or emotion from the minister’s voice.

As the sermon finished, Marsali turned her back and reached for a clean towel to spread below the knees of the minister, who was getting ready to pray. All knelt with heads upon their arms on the chairs, many with gasps as their stiff joints cracked with the stooping. “

….. And now that Thou hast taken to Thyself our long-afflicted brother, may Thy care and consolation descent upon this sorrowing household, and especially upon the sister that has ministered unto him through his years of pain and helplessness. May she find now the rest and comfort that she has merited by her long, unselfish devotion…..”

Unseen, Marsali wiped her eyes. The two brothers struggled desperately against the drowsiness that was overmastering them as the kitchen grew hotter and closer. Sluain began to whimper once more, and none could check him till the prayer ceased.

The company rose with difficulty. The joiner drew a large screwdriver from his pocket and signed to the smith and the roadman to help him with the heavy lid of the coffin. He looked with a trace of satisfaction at his handiwork, plain, unpainted, unvarnished, unbeautiful, yet somehow befitting that kitchen and the dead form within. All gathered round. None spoke. No one made any move to touch the cold, waxen face farewell.

The lid slammed down. The joiner thrust in a huge screw. From under the table came a howl of despair and rage; and the unheeded dog flung itself fiercely at the joiner.

In an instant there was commotion. Both brothers, roaring at the animal, grasped it by the neck. The smith kicked viciously at its jaw to make it loose its grip.

“Don’t hurt him, oh, don’t hurt him” cried Marsali wildly. She seized the dog round the neck and dragged it out of the kitchen, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

The work proceeded. All the time they heard the heartbroken howling of the dog from the table. Marsali did not reappear.

The six tallest of the men raised the heavy coffin to their shoulders and carried it through the low doorway. On their bared heads the grey rain fell pitilessly. From the Port two hundred yards distant, could be heard the boom of the breakers rolling in from the Atlantic and crunching the shingle on the raised beach. Step by step they carried their load up the slippery, rock-strewn track, inched deep in slush, until they reached the narrow, precipitous road that led to the graveyard in Scalmaid five miles away.

Marsali emerged from the stable as they approached the top. In the rain she stood hatless and coatless watching, watching them toiling and stumbling upward. he minister, who had lingered to gather his gear, laid a hand on her shoulder kindly. “It’s well he’s gone, Miss MacCallum”, he said. “It must be a relief to you.”

She waited a minute. Then she followed after. Where they had crossed the dyke, she stood on the stepping stone and watched them place their load in the farm cart.

The procession started, the horse plunging and clambering through the mud and melting snow. Each time a wheel bumped into some hidden hole she heard the rattle of the coffin. They had passed now the dwindling path that led to the old mill. The cortège disappeared, wound into sight again lower down, then vanished between high rocks. The mist closed thicker than ever around her, and the rain soaked through her thin blouse.

She turned home to the empty croft. But she did not enter the kitchen. She opened the stable door and sank down in the straw. She buried her face in the dog’s heaving side. “Well away! Well away!” she cried bitterly. “Oh, Sluain, only the two of us that know Angus.”