There is an old yew tree which stands by the wall in a dark quiet corner
of the church-yard.
And a child was at play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine
day in the early spring. He had his lap full of flowers, which the
fields and lanes had supplied him with, and he was humming a tune to
himself as he wove them into garlands.
And a little girl at play among the tombstones crept near to listen; but
the boy was so intent upon his garland, that he did not hear the gentle
footsteps, as they trod softly over the fresh green grass. When his work
was finished, and all the flowers that were in his lap were woven
together in one long wreath, he started up to measure its length upon
the ground, and then he saw the little girl, as she stood with her eyes
fixed upon him. He did not move or speak, but thought to himself that
she looked very beautiful as she stood there with her flaxen ringlets,
hanging down upon her neck. The little girl was so startled by his
sudden movement, that she let fall all the flowers she had collected in
her apron, and ran away as fast as she could. But the boy was older and
taller than she, and soon caught her, and coaxed her to come back and
play with him, and help him to make more garlands; and from that time
they saw each other nearly every day, and became great friends.
Twenty years passed away. Again he was seated beneath the old yew tree
in the church-yard.
It was summer now; bright, beautiful summer, with the birds singing, and
the flowers covering the ground, and scenting the air with their
perfume.
But he was not alone now, nor did the little girl steal near on tiptoe,
fearful of being heard. She was seated by his side, and his arm was
round her, and she looked up into his face, and smiled as she whispered:
“The first evening of our lives we were ever together was passed here:
we will spend the first evening of our wedded life in the same quiet,
happy place.” And he drew her closer to him as she spoke.
The summer is gone; and the autumn; and twenty more summers and autumns
have passed away since that evening, in the old church-yard.
A young man, on a bright moonlight night, comes reeling through the
little white gate, and stumbling over the graves. He shouts and he
sings, and is presently followed by others like unto himself or worse.
So, they all laugh at the dark solemn head of the yew tree, and throw
stones up at the place where the moon has silvered the boughs.
Those same boughs are again silvered by the moon, and they droop over
his mother’s grave. There is a little stone which bears this
inscription:--
“HER HEART BRAKE IN SILENCE.”
But the silence of the churchyard is now broken by a voice--not of the
youth--nor a voice of laughter and ribaldry.
“My son!--dost thou see this grave? and dost thou read the record in
anguish, whereof may come repentance?”
“Of what should I repent?” answers the son; “and why should my young
ambition for fame relax in its strength because my mother was old and
weak?”
“Is this indeed our son?” says the father, bending in agony over the
grave of his beloved.
“I can well believe I am not;” exclaimeth the youth. “It is well that
you have brought me here to say so. Our natures are unlike; our courses
must be opposite. Your way lieth here--mine yonder!”
So the son left the father kneeling by the grave.
Again a few years are passed. It is winter, with a roaring wind and a
thick gray fog. The graves in the Church-yard are covered with snow, and
there are great icicles in the Church-porch. The wind now carries a
swathe of snow along the tops of the graves, as though the “sheeted
dead” were at some melancholy play; and hark! the icicles fall with a
crash and jingle, like a solemn mockery of the echo of the unseemly
mirth of one who is now coming to his final rest.
There are two graves near the old yew tree; and the grass has overgrown
them. A third is close by; and the dark earth at each side has just been
thrown up. The bearers come; with a heavy pace they move along; the
coffin heaveth up and down, as they step over the intervening graves.
Grief and old age had seized upon the father, and worn out his life; and
premature decay soon seized upon the son, and gnawed away his vain
ambition, and his useless strength, till he prayed to be borne, not the
way yonder that was most opposite to his father and his mother, but even
the same way they had gone--the way which leads to the Old Churchyard
Tree.