BUT the concluding evening scene was without doubt by far the most impressive of the whole. I have told you that a tent had been erected at the foot of the church-yard, and that from it different ministers preached to the multitude which overflowed after the church itself was filled, during the whole of the day: but now, after the sacrament had been dispensed to all who were admitted to that privilege, the kirk was shut up, and the whole of the thousands who had assembled, were summoned to hear one parting sermon at the tent together. The minister's wife and I came down the hill from the Manse just as this part of the service was about to commence, and ere we had come within sight of the place, the sounds of the preparatory psalm they were all singing together, came to us wafted over the intervening bean-fields on a gale of perfume, and softened into the balmiest melody by the space over which they travelled, in the rich stillness of the evening air.

There could not be a finer sight than that which presented itself to us when we came to the brink of the ravine which overhung, on the one side, the rustic amphitheatre now filled by this mighty congregation. All up the face of the opposite hill, which swept in a gentle curve before us,—the little brook I have mentioned flowing brightly between in the gleam of sunset,—the soft turf of those simple sepulchres rising row above row, and the little flat tomb-stones scattered more sparingly among them, were covered with one massy cluster of the listening peasantry. Near to the tent on one side were drawn up some of the carriages of the neighbouring gentry, in which, the horses being taken away, the ancient ladies were seen sitting protected from the dews of the twilight—while the younger ones occupied places on the turf immediately below them. Close in front of the preacher, the very oldest of the people seemed to be arranged together, most of them sitting on stools brought for them by their children from the village—yet fresh and unwearied after all the fatigues of the day, and determined not to go away while any part of its services remained to be performed.