Year: 1875




"In the midst of life we are in death p
These words sounded so quiet and solemn
that Mary and / stopped short close TO the
old.fashioned lynch gate at the little church
yard and then, as il We moved and thought
together, we went in softly to the funeral,
and stood at little distance, me with my
hat of and Mary with her head bent down,
Till the service was done.


There it all is again as I'm telling il to
you, come back as fresh and clear as if
was looking at it now; pretty little old
fashioned church, with a stone wall round
the yard, where the graves lay pretty thick
and close, but all looking green and flow
cry and old, great clump of the biggest
and Oldest yew trees l ever saw, and tall
thick hedge separating :he church-yard
from the clergyman's house. The sun was
shining brightly, turning the lichen-cover-
ed roofs of the church aud the vicarage in-
to gold from the trees close by came The
twittering Of birds, and away past the viii
lage houses bathed in the bright afternoon
sunshine there were the fields of crimson
clover. and the banks full of golden broom
and gorse. Over all was sense of such
peace and silence that it seemed as If there
was nothing terrible, only quiet sadness
in the funeral, with its few mourners stand
ing by the open grave, and the gray-haired
clergyman Standing by; and last of all,
when Mary and went up and looked into
the grave and read on the co fin plate,
"Aged H." one couldn't help feeling that
the poor soul had only gone TO sleep tired
with long life.


1t was my fancy perhaps, but as we STROLL
ed round that church-yard, and read a
tombstone here, and a board there, il SEEM
ed as if no sooner had the parson gone in to
take of his surplice, and the mourners len
the church. yard, than the whole place woke
up again to busy life. A chaffinch came
and jerked out its bit of a song in one Of
the yews, the Guinea-fowl in a farm close
by set up their loud crying, the geese
shrieked on the green, and creaking, and
rattling, and humping, there came along a
well-tilled wagon Of the sweetest hay that
ever was caught in loose handfuls by the
boughs of the trees and then fell softly back
into the road.


We were very quiet, Mary and l, as we
strolled out of the churchyard, down one
OF the lanes, and then crossing a slle, we
clme through couple Of fields, and sat
down on another stile, with the high hedge
on either side of us, and the meadow, that
they were beginning to NOW at the other
end, one glorious bed of flowers and son
feathery grass.


"Polly.' 1 says at last, breaking the si-
lence, "aint this heayenly2"


"And you feel better" she says, laying
her hand on mine.


"Betlerp 1 says taking long draught
of the son sweet-scented air, and filling my
chest-"better, old girl! / feel as If l was
growing back wards into boy"


Sand you tiny last week r.


"Yes," 1 says smiling, "and you forty
seven next week." And then we sat think
ing for bit.


"Polly," | says at last, as / sat there
drinking in that soft breeze, and feeling it
giving me strength, 'it's worth being i'll
only 10 feel as do now"


For you see had been bad, else dare
say Pm not the man TO be hanging about
church yards and watching funerals; I'm
a stoker, my work lies in steamers trading
to the East. I'd come home from my last
voyage bad with fever, caught out in one
of those nasty, hot, bad-smelling ports
been carried home to die, as my mates
thought; and it was being like this, and
getting better, that had set me to thinking
so seriously, and made me so quiet; not
that was ever q noisy sort Of a man. as