Publish with Us Home > Romance > Bride of Lammermoor
Bookmark and Share
Text Size: A A A A

Chapter 35 - Page 1 of 12

 

Whose mind's so marbled, and his heart so hard,
That would not, when this huge mishap was heard,
To th' utmost note of sorrow set their song,
To see a gallant, with so great a grace,
So suddenly unthought on, so o'erthrown,
And so to perish, in so poor a place,
By too rash riding in a ground unknown!

POEM, IN NISBET'S Heraldry, vol. ii.

We have anticipated the course of time to mention Bucklaw's recovery and
fate, that we might not interrupt the detail of events which succeeded
the funeral of the unfortunate Lucy Ashton. This melancholy ceremony was
performed in the misty dawn of an autumnal morning, with such moderate
attendance and ceremony as could not possibly be dispensed with. A very
few of the nearest relations attended her body to the same churchyard to
which she had so lately been led as a bride, with as little free will,
perhaps, as could be now testified by her lifeless and passive remains.
An aisle adjacent to the church had been fitted up by Sir William Ashton
as a family cemetery; and here, in a coffin bearing neither name nor
date, were consigned to dust the remains of what was once lovely,
beautiful, and innocent, though exasperated to frenzy by a long tract of
unremitting persecution.

While the mourners were busy in the vault, the three village hags, who,
notwithstanding the unwonted earliness of the hour, had snuffed the
carrion like vultures, were seated on the "through-stane," and engaged
in their wonted unhallowed conference.

Chapter 35 - Page 1 of 12