Whose part in all the pomp that fills,
The circuit of the summer hills.
Is that his grave is green.
And deeply would their hearts rejoice,
To hear again his living voice.
BRYANT.
The funeral, with the usual celerity with which such things are done
in our country, was to take place on the next day. Too often the haste
appears indecent, and it may be that in some instances the body has
been buried before life deserted it. It would seem that the family
felt constrained by the presence of the corpse, and compelled to
exercise an irksome self-control, and, therefore, desired to hurry it
under ground, as if it would be less likely there to know how soon it
was forgotten.
But in the present case there was no reason why the body should be
longer kept. There could be no doubt that life was extinct. It had
lain too long in the water to admit a ray of hope to the contrary.
The sooner it was placed in its final earthly home the better for
poor Jane Sill, the widow. Her grief would the sooner be mitigated, by
withdrawing her thoughts from the dead to fix them on the necessity of
providing for the living. Until the burial the sympathizing neighbors
took upon themselves to perform the usual work of the household, such
as cooking the necessary food, &c., and one or another came in at
times to look after the children, to see that nothing was neglected
for their comfort, and to console the lone woman in her affliction.
But this could not last long. It was better it should not, but that
things should, as quickly as possible, resume their usual and natural
course.
When the hour for the ceremony arrived, Mr. Armstrong sent round his
carriage to convey the mourning family in the melancholy procession,
while he and Faith, as the distance was short, proceeded on foot to
the house. It was situated on a sandy beach, near the Wootúppocut, and
a considerable company had collected together before their arrival.
Poor Josiah's generosity and good-nature had made him a general
favorite, and his acquaintances had pretty generally turned out to
render to him the last testimony of affection it would ever be in
their power to pay. The house was too small to hold all present, so
that besides the relations, very few except females were admitted.
Faith entered, but her father, though courteously invited in, and in
consequence of his connection with the accident that caused the death,
considered in some wise a mourner, preferred to remain on the outside.
Meanwhile, during the preparations in the house, groups without were
scattered round, engaged, in low voices, in various conversation.
In some, expressions of condolence and pity were let fall for the
condition of the widow and her family; others descanted on the
good qualities of the deceased; others debated on what might be the
feelings of Armstrong, and wondered what he would give the widow. They
were all acquainted with his generosity, and doubted not of his desire
to repair, so far as he was able, the misfortune with which the more
ignorant would insist upon connecting him as in some sort, a cause.
For this reason, some of them stole sly glances, from time to time,
at his face, wishing not to be observed, as if they expected to read
therein his purposes. But Armstrong, his eyes fastened on the ground,
and absorbed in his own reflections, was unconscious of the attention
he attracted. So lost was he, indeed, in his own thoughts, as not to
observe many of the nods and greetings directed to him.
Presently low tones, as of one speaking, were heard issuing from the
house, and those standing outside gathered round the open door, to
listen to the prayer of the minister. It seems to be taken for granted
that on such occasions the prayer must occupy some considerable time,
whether because a short one would be irreverent to the Being to whom
it is addressed, or disrespectful to the sorrowing friends, or because
the mind cannot sooner be impressed with due solemnity. Hence it
follows that as these prayers are extempore, and the abilities and
taste of those who offer them of different degrees, they are of
various shades of merit. Seldom is one made in which the canons of
good taste are not violated, and some are not compelled to smile who
ought to weep. The reverend gentleman who conducted the services,
was not insensible to what was expected from him, and determined
"to improve" the mournful event to the benefit of the living. After
alluding to the gratitude his hearers ought to feel at not being thus
hurried, like poor Sill, without time for preparation, before the bar
of Judgment, who, however, he hoped, was prepared, and in order
to heighten the feeling of thankfulness, contrasting the light and
liberty of life with the darkness of the grave (as if the spirit were
confined there), he ran through the usual common places, speaking
with an assured conviction, as if the country beyond the grave were
as familiar to him as the streets of the town. With a tedious
particularity he then entreated the divine blessing upon the members
of the bereaved family, mentioning them by name, beginning with the
widow, to whom succeeded the children, two boys, one of four, and
the other of two years of age, followed by fathers, and mothers, and
brothers, and sisters to an indefinite extent, until the compliment
was duly paid to all who were supposed to have any claim to it. The
prayer was closed very much as it began, with a reference to the
suddenness of the death, which was treated as a warning sent for their
benefit, and a hope that it might be laid to heart, and induce sinners
to fly from the wrath to come. The usual time being now consumed, the
minister who had labored hard, and not without sundry hesitations
and coughings to accomplish his task, brought it to a conclusion, and
announced an appropriate hymn. There was something sadly sweet
and touching in the homely words and simple tune, sung in low and
suppressed tones, as if they were afraid of disturbing the slumbers of
the dead.
Upon the conclusion of the hymn, the person who acted as master of
the ceremonies went to the door, and, addressing those gathered round,
said that all who desired might now have an opportunity to see
the corpse. Several accepted the invitation, and among others, Mr.
Armstrong.
The coffin was placed upon a table in the centre of the room, with
a part of the lid turned back on hinges, so as to leave the face
exposed. The former friends and acquaintances of the dead man, giving
place and succeeding to one another, came, looked, and passed out
again, moving lightly on tip-toe solemnized and subdued by the awful
mystery of death. As they came in and left the house, they could see
through an open door in an adjoining room the weeping widow in full
mourning, with her little boys on either side, and the relations
seated round in chairs.
All having gazed upon the corpse who wished, preparations now
commenced for screwing down the lid of the coffin. The sobs and sounds
of grief which had proceeded from the room where the mourners were
collected, and which had been, as by an effort, suppressed during the
prayer and hymn, now broke forth afresh.
"O, do not hinder me," poor Mrs. Sill was heard to say; "it's the only
chance I shall have in this world."
"I guess you'd better not," said a voice, trying to dissuade her.
"It's no use; and, then, before all them strangers."
"I will see Josiah," she exclaimed, rising from her seat, and putting
aside the well-meaning hand that strove to detain her. "Who has a
better right to take the last look than me?"
With these words, her crape veil thrown in disorder back upon her
shoulders, her eyes red and swollen with crying, and tears streaming
down her cheeks, she advanced towards the body, all respectfully
making room for her as she approached.
We are not a very demonstrative people. The inhabitants of New England
are taught, from an early age, the lesson of self-control. They do
not wear in their bosoms windows into which any eyes may look. It is
considered unmanly for men to exhibit excessive feeling, and perhaps
the sentiment has an influence even on the softer sex. The conduct of
Mrs. Sill was unusual, and excited surprise; but it is difficult to
stem strong passion and it had its way.
She moved quickly up to the table, and threw her arms around the
coffin, resting her cheek on that of her husband, while the hot tears
ran in large drops down its marble surface. One who thought he had a
right to interfere, whispered in her ear, and took hold of an arm to
draw her away, but she turned fiercely upon him.
"Who are you," she said, "to separate me from my husband? Go--I will
keep him as long as I please."
The person, seeing her determination, desisted; and all looked on in
mournful silence.
"O, Josiah," she sobbed, "who'd have thought it! The best, the kindest
husband a woman ever had. O! how sorry I am for every hard word I ever
spoke to you. And you so good--never to find fault when I scolded.
I was wicked--and yet all the time I loved you so. Did you know it,
Josiah? If you were back again, how different I would treat you! The
fire should always be burning bright, and the hearth clean, when you
came back cold from fishing, and you should never, never ask me a
second time for anything. But you don't hear me. What's the use
of crying and lamenting? Here," she said, raising herself up, and
addressing those next her, "take him, and put him in his grave."
She staggered and fainted, and would have fallen, had she not been
caught in the arms of sympathizing friends, who removed her into the
adjoining chamber, and applied the usual restoratives. This caused
some little delay, but, after a time, the person who had assumed upon
himself the arrangements of the funeral, entered, preceding the four
bearers, whose hats he took into his own hands, to restore them to the
owners when the coffin should be placed in the hearse--a plain black
wagon, with black cloth curtains--waiting at the door. The coffin was
taken up by them, and deposited accordingly; after which, they took
their places in front of the hearse, while the four pall-bearers
ranged themselves on each side. At a signal from the director of the
ceremony, the whole moved forward, leaving space for the carriages
to approach the door. Mr. Armstrong's carriage was driven up, and the
widow and children, with two or three females, were assisted in. Then
followed a few other vehicles, with the nearest relatives, after whom
came others, as they pleased to join. A large number of persons had
previously formed themselves into a procession before the hearse,
headed by the minister, who would have been accompanied by a
physician, had one assisted in making poor Sill's passage to the other
world easier.
The mournful cortége wound slowly up a hill to the burying-ground--a
piece of broken land on the top. At the time of which we write, the
resting-place of the departed of Hillsdale presented a different
appearance from what it does now. Wild, neglected, overgrown with
briers, it looked repulsive to the living, and unworthy of the dead.
The tender sentiment which associates beauty with the memory of
our friends, and loves to plant the evergreen and rose around their
graves, seemed then not to have touched the bosoms of our people. A
pleasing change has succeeded. The briars have been removed, trees
planted, and when necessary to be laid out, new burial-ground spots
have been selected remarkable for attractiveness and susceptibility
of improvement. The brook has been led in and conducted in tortuous
paths, as if to lull with a soft hymn the tired sleepers, and then
expanded into a fairy lake, around which the weeping willow lets fall
its graceful pendants. The white pine, the various species of firs,
the rhododendron, mixed with the maple, the elm, and the tulip tree,
have found their way into the sacred enclosure. The reproach of
Puritanic insensibility is wiped out. Europe may boast of prouder
monuments, but she has no burial-places so beautiful as some of ours.
Père la Chaise is splendid in marble and iron, but the loveliness of
nature is wanting. Sweet Auburn, and Greenwood, and Laurel Hill are
peerless in their mournful charms.
The coffin was lowered into the grave in silence. No solemn voice
pronounced the farewell "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." The ceremonies
were concluded. The minister took off his hat, and addressing the
bystanders, some of whom, respectfully imitating his example, raised
the coverings from their heads, thanked them in the name of the
afflicted family for this last tribute of regard. The procession
was formed again, and slowly returned to the house, leaving the
grave-digger to shovel in the gravel and complete his task.
As Mr. Armstrong and Faith walked home together, but few words were
exchanged between them. Each was absorbed in reflection upon the scene
just witnessed. In Faith's mind it was solemn, but devoid of gloom.
With the hopefulness of health and youth, gleams of sunshine played
over the grave. She looked beyond, and hoped and trusted.
But with her father it was different. Had it not been for him Sill
might have been alive and well. He had made the wife a widow and her
children orphans. He had introduced weeping and wailing into a happy
home. But this was a slight calamity, and hardly worthy of a thought
in comparison with another. The words of the minister, that the victim
had been hurried to his sentence without time for preparation recurred
with a feeling of horror. It was he through whose instrumentality Sill
had been thrust into tormenting but undestroying flames. Better that
he had never been born. Better that he had been strangled in the hour
of his birth.
With thoughts like these, this unhappy man, whose heart was the seat
of all the virtues, tormented himself. It seemed sometimes strange
that people did not point their fingers at him: that he was not
arrested for the murder: that he was permitted to walk abroad in the
sunshine. His mind, unknown to those about him, unknown to himself,
was hovering on the confines of insanity. Only a spark, perhaps, was
necessary to light a conflagration. Alas! that one so good, so noble,
should be a victim of destiny. But we forbear to intrude further into
reflections alike miserable and insane.
Mr. Armstrong felt more composed the next day, and in the afternoon,
accompanied by Faith, went to the dwelling of the widow. They found
her engaged in ordinary family affairs. The duties to the living must
be respected. To neither rich nor poor does sorrow furnish an excuse
for their neglect. Let the mind find something to occupy it, the
hand something to do. Thus do we become sooner reconciled to those
dispensations of Providence at which our weakness, and ignorance, and
presumption rebel.
The poor woman received them kindly, and offered chairs. Faith took
into her lap the younger child from the floor on which it was sitting,
gnawing a crust of brown bread, and began to talk to him. The round
eyes of the boy expressed his astonishment, but as he looked into the
loving face and heard more of the sweet voice, the alarm he at first
felt at the approach of the stranger subsided, and he smiled with the
confiding innocence which children return to the caresses of those who
are fond of them.
"Jimmy doesn't know what a loss he's had," said Mrs. Sill.
"Jimmy will grow up to take care of his mother bye and bye, and repay
her for some of her trouble, won't he?" said Faith, addressing the
boy.
"O, Josiah and Jimmy are my only comfort," said the widow--"now that
he's gone. I don't know what I should do without them, I'm sure."
Mr. Armstrong had called the elder boy, Josiah, to his side, and the
little fellow had quickly become familiar enough to play with his gold
watch-chain. Seeing it pleased the child, he took the watch and held
it to his ear, at which the countenance of the boy became radiant with
delight. "O, Jimmy," he cried, "it talks."
Mr. Armstrong released the watch into the hands of Josiah, who ran
with it to his brother.
"He will drop it," exclaimed Mrs. Sill, starting forward, taking the
watch from the hands of the disappointed boy, and offering it to Mr.
Armstrong.
"Keep it," he said, "for Josiah, to associate me, when he grows up,
with his father's death."
"You don't mean to give away your gold watch?" said Mrs. Sill, still
holding it out towards him.
"Yes, Mrs. Sill," said Mr. Armstrong, "I intended it for him: I would
give him all I have if I could thereby restore his father to life."
This observation renewed in full force the sorrow of the poor woman.
She sank back into a chair, and covering her face with her apron,
sobbed and wept bitterly.
Faith looked at her father with an expression which seemed to say--do
not refer to the cause of her grief. Armstrong understood the appeal,
but he had that in his mind which was unknown to his daughter, and
after a pause he proceeded.
"I have more property than I deserve, and what better use can I put
it to than give it to the deserving? You will find in that," he
continued, handing a paper to the widow, "what will entitle you to
a little income during your life. I hope it will enable you to take
better care of your children."
Mrs. Sill took the paper mechanically, and gazed upon without opening
it or imagining the extent of the gift. She kept turning it round and
round in her fingers, as if not knowing what to do with it.
"Everybody knows you're a kind man, and as generous as you're rich,
Mr. Armstrong;" at last she said, "But I guess I shant want anything
long in this world."
"I hope you may live long yet," said Mr. Armstrong, "for the sake of
the little boys."
This allusion recalled her more to herself, and without looking at
the paper she put it into her bosom. "I'm sure I thank you with all my
heart, and shall always try to do my duty by them," she said.
Here Mr. Armstrong rose, and Faith, putting down the child, that
seemed loth to leave her, spoke in a low tone some parting words of
consolation.
"I'm sure you're very good; I'm sure I'm very much obleeged to you,"
was all Mrs. Sill could say.
On their way home Faith spoke of the promising appearance of the
children, and of what the hopes of the mother must be on their
account.
"It is true they are all that are left to her," said Mr. Armstrong,
"and what hopes she has of earthly happiness must be built on them.
But who can look into to-morrow? A few days ago, never dreaming of
misfortune, she exulted in the enjoyment of her husband and little
boys. The first is taken away, and none know how soon the latter may
be. So joys and sorrows are mingled together. At this moment she is
more miserable for having been happy, and so great is the misery, it
outweighs all the happiness of former years. Such is the nature of
pain and pleasure. A pang of the former, an instant's acute agony, may
be equivalent to hours of what is called enjoyment. We are so made. We
may hope for happiness: we are certain of sorrow. We must seek
after the one: the other is sure to find us. When I look round, what
evidences of wretchedness do I see! Alas, it is indeed a fallen world,
and the ground is cursed for man's sake."
"You take a gloomy view, father," said Faith. "Look beyond. Are we not
promised a happier time when the bliss of Eden shall be renewed?"
"Yes, and the time will come. Not only prophets and apostles have
had it revealed to them, but grand souls among the heathen have dimly
descryed its dawning from afar. But what unimaginable scenes of horror
must first be? What doleful _misereres_ must first ascend to cloud
the brightness of the heavens and dim the joy of the blest! Long, long
before then, your and my remembrance, Faith, will have perished from
the earth. You will be then a seraph, and I--. If there be ever an
interval of pain, it will be when I think of your blessedness, and
you, if angels sometimes weep, will drop a tear to the memory of your
father, and it shall cool his torment."
What could the grieved and alarmed daughter say? She spoke in gentle
and loving tones. She combated by every possible argument these
miserable fancies. She entreated him for her sake as well as his own,
to cast them off. He listened to her without impatience, and as if
he loved to hear the sound of her voice. But he shook his head with
a mournful sadness, and his melancholy remained. As may well be
supposed, the dark cloud that had settled down upon his mind was not
thus to be dissipated. Faith, though troubled, did not despair. She
trusted the impression of the late calamity, to which she attributed
much of his unhappiness, would in time wear off. Meanwhile, she
commended him to the kind protection of that Gracious Being who is
loving to all his works.