midnight
-- O God , forgie her ! '' `` But minnie was asking ye , '' resumed the lesser querist , `` what for the Glenallan family aye bury their dead by torch-light ? '' `` They hae aye dune sae , '' said the grandmother , `` since the time the Great Earl fell in the sair battle o ' the Harlaw , when they say the coronach was cried in ae day from the mouth of the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach , that ye wad hae heard nae other sound but that of lamentation for the great folks that had fa'en fighting against Donald of the Isles . But the Great Earl 's mither was living -- they were a doughty and a dour race , the women o ' the house o ' Glenallan -- and she wad hae nae coronach cried for her son , but had him laid in the silence o ' midnight in his place o ' rest , without either drinking the dirge , or crying the lament . She said he had killed enow that day he died , for the widows and daughters o ' the Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for them they had lost , and for her son too ; and sae she laid him in his gave wi ' dry eyes , and without a groan or a wail . And it was thought a proud word o ' the family , and they aye stickit by it -- and the mair in the latter times , because in the night-time they had mair freedom to perform their popish ceremonies by darkness and in secrecy than in the daylight -- at least that was the case in my time ; they wad hae been disturbed in the day-time baith by the law and the commons of Fairport -- they may be owerlooked now , as I have heard : the warlds changed -- I whiles hardly ken whether I am standing or sitting , or dead or living . '' And looking round the fire , as if in a state of unconscious uncertainty of which she complained , old Elspeth relapsed into her habitual and mechanical occupation of twirling the spindle .