The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1897-04-24

glory, and where there is one that walks
alone. The singers go before with taper
and bell and the pale, swaying cruciiix;
the mourners, follow, weeping as fore one
patch of road, alone in the midst of the
sunshine and the sweet, strong spring air,
one that walks alone.
1t is funeral on its way to the church,
the saddest and strangest in the world; the
funeral, as it used to be in Brittany, of a
leper. The scourge had been found on him
and there was no escape he must rise and
be driven forth, and his place would know
him no more. He had sat waiting for the
end, looking duly from wife to child, with
eyes that had already grown lustreless and
dim; there would be time enough after
wards to weep, if lepers remembered how
to weep. He could not rebel, he could not
escape, there was not anywhere any hope;
there was nothing to be said or done but to
wait, only to wait till they came to. take
him away. His wife wept, and he watched
her with curious remote speculation;
soon, very soon, when he was out of sight,
her tears would be dried. She would
laugh again presently, when he was dead
and put away; and he, he would not be so
d, ad, leper as he was, but he would hear
her voice when he passed and yearn for
her, or curse her. Already he almost hated
her for her clean health; and a cruel pleas
IRE swept through him at the thought that
perhaps, since she had been constantly
with him.. Only when he was dead
he would not care; he would hear many
feet running to avoid his path, and he
would not know which were the feet of
his children, and when his wife laughed. it
would be no more to him than n sound,
like other sounds; he would not know or
care. Dead men did not feel; and already
the sting was surely not so very bitter.
There was nothing to do but to sit and
wait, and to watch his wife and his young
children; they wept, but they sat at the
far side by the window, and they left him
alone. 1t would not he long now before
those came that were to put him outside of
life.
And presently the priests and the choris-
tiers, with the strong smell of incense and
the shining cruciiiX, had paused upon his
doorstep, the doorstep whicl had been his
tbu Il Of bi., wi l.,
at them, with a vague Indifferent pleasure
in the sight, and an impersonal interest in
the matter which seemed very slightly to
concern him. 1t was fine funeral with
the great silver cruciiX, and the glitter of
silver on black, and the Pickering tapers; it
was funeral Sucn as one gave only to per-
sons of position. The villagers were con-
tent with much less, when they had to pay
for it; but it was the Church that buried
the lepers. He had seen such funerals
before, and he had followed in the crowd,
we'll behind, with careful eye upon the
way of the wind. He had never thought
very much about the one that walked after
the priest alone. Holy water was sprnk-
led upon the Threshold and blessing laid
upon the house; and he was then hidden to
unclothe himself and to put on black
gown that the priest had brought, for he
might carry nothing away with him into
death; all that he possessed must be left
behind. Perhaps he faltered for a moment
in departing, and looked back; he was al
ready no more than dead man, but this
had been his home, and his wife and chill
dren were there, weeping. He looked
back; but they sat at the far side, with a
breadth of air between them, and he was
alone. Henceforward he would always be
alone. The crucifx and the silver bell led
the way, glttering aud tinklng. The
cholisters swung their censers, and the
! tapers fickered in the wind; and the
priests voice spread out sonorously to meet
the answering trebles, in long slow
cadences: Thou shalt wash me, and
shall be whittier than snow