The Holly chieftain., 1904-02-12
CHAPTER X.
The Fourth Carriage From the En-
q cine
was gone.

= gine.
The next morning. being Sunday,
everyone from far and near repaired
to the church, which contained within
its walls the materials for such a fune-
raj sermon as, in all its ancient his
tory, it had never before seen gath
cred together there.
The remains, now all decently in
closed in cotfins, still lay within the
precincts OF the chancel. where they
must remain until after the inquest
on the following day arr
The church, which was of no great
size, was filed to overfowing. For
not only were there many mourners
present, who had come post-haste
from all parts of the kingdom, but
strangers for miles round, attracted by.
the morbid curiosity which draws
crowds as with a cart-rope, wherever
there is a prevalence of the CHASTITY
element, blocked the aisles. filed the
porch, and even occupied the pulpit
stairs.
People who came to cape and gaze,
and then, going home to the Sunday
the shoulder of mutton and baked po-
tatoes, remarking, as they wiped their
mouths, that it was a sad sight, but
one they wouldn't have missed for
anything you could have offered them
At the same time they were compelled
TO own that there were not so many
bodies as they had confidently eX-
Nprtpn
| come up to your expectations in this
| world.
| Ted Burritt had seat assigned
him in one of the front pews. A
glance at his face, on the part of the
functlonary who discharged the Office
OF usherinS the people into theii
places seemed to be sufficient to show
to which portion of the congregation
he belonged,
! Ted Burritt knew that his fathers
body now lay there within the chan
Gel rails, in one of those hastily con
| structed coftins, which had been
roughly put together to meet the sud
den and unprecedented demand
| 1t was evident that a certain num-
Der of seats had been reserved for
those who, it was felt, had the great
est claim to them, for he observed,
after short time, that the same pew
into which he had been ushered also
| contained two of his fellow passen
| gers on that ever memorable Journey
| "a poor widow and another woman.
The former, it was impossible to
| doubt, had found her worst fears
realized, for she still cried silently
and ceaselessly behind the shelter of
her veil. The other woman, whom
he now guessed to be about forty
years of age, and who was cookbook
ing in a sort of hard-featured way,
was also clothed in deep black gar.
ments, but there was suppressed
glitter In her eye, and that same rest
less movement of the fingers. as she
perpetually rustled the leaves of her
prayer-book. which betrayed the en-
istence of, some strong but suppressed
feeling, which seemed to be more like
excitement than grief.
But, then, we are all at liberty 70
show our grief in our own peculiar
way
In the other pews round him he rec
ognized other faces-those of fellow
travellers or others whom he had seen
at the station or in the church in the
early morning of the day before.
Among these there were, of course,
happy exceptions to the general rule.
There were those who had found the
living where they had looked for the
dead, and who, after a few hours OF
torturing suspense, had discovered the
one they sought, either in the village
or in some of the neighboring ham
let's. and were present on that morn
ing with a chastened joy and graft
tutc unspeakable.
ITO be continued)