The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

ON
A Strano-c Rcveufre.
A STRANGE REVENGE.
By D. Nairne.
CHAPTER XI.
IS SHE DEAD?
the clear morning air, the Parish Church bell rang
out, as solemnly as its cracked condition would per-
mit, the intelligence that death had occurred in high
quarters since the last setting of the sun. The beadle
being strongly aristocratic in his sympathies, only paid the
compliment (entirely optional) of a knell to those of high
degree. Aware of Tammas's weakness, the whole population,
within range of the sound, turned out to enquire, with
bated breath and sombre visage, who had been the victim
of so hurried a sumir.ons to the final reckoning.
Nobody had been known to be ailing : ah ! it is these
dramatic incidents of human life—from health to death in
the twinkling of an eye—which preach the most impressive
and universal of sermons to mankind. Millions suffer long
and excruciating agony before death brings them peace, but
the newspapers are silent. Let the meanest pauper, on the
other hand, make his exit at a moment's notice into the
Unseen, and he does not go down to the grave unknown.
While the dolesome pulpit warnings of the previous Sunday
are forgotten, the pauper's fate produces solemnity, and
sends people to their Bibles, if not to prayer. It is the
mystery of it. A soldier is shot ; a criminal is hung ; an
explosion blows a dozen healthy men to their last account
— all very sad events in their way ; but here the cause is
self-evident, and, consequently, unimpressive, whereas in
the case of the pauper the supernatural element comes in.
Medical men may assign scientific reasons, and education