As was their custom, the women of the Fairweather family laid the body of Uncle Jim in his coffin in one room of their house to allow family and friends the opportunity to say farewell. Spread around the other rooms, men and women gathered in solemn conviviality, speaking in low tones of Jim and other family matters. I did not like such affairs, although it did allow people to give voice to their feelings and nobody thought ill of anybody who revealed their emotions at such a time. Even the Fairweather family, not the most demonstrative of people, were allowed some feelings when death arrived.
“Aye.” Wearing her widow’s weeds, Mrs James Fairweather stood beside her husband’s coffin with a glass of whisky in her hand. “Aye, he wasnae all that bad a man, all things considered.”
“Aye,” Mrs
