XIV.

DUST TO DUST.

OTWITHSTANDING the mournfulness of the occasion, that afternoon ride has a kind of glory in my memory, mainly attributable, I imagine, to the genial influences of the balmy June weather; the really fine days of which month are the most perfect that the year vouchsafes us. A little too warm in the sun, perhaps, yet only enough so to assure us that that luminary was in a lavish and beneficent mood;neither intent on restricting his life-giving warmth to a bare sufficiency for one's needs; nor engaged in a malicious experiment how much of it human flesh and blood could endure without broiling. And in the shade, the atmosphere was full of a primal freshness, as if it had just been created,-which it was enough of delight merely to breathe and taste.

The graveyard was about two miles away. The road thither wound through a pleasant variety of New England scenery, wherein the tamest objects had a semi-wild look, as if but half-subordinated to civilization, and ready, at any moment, to lapse back into savagery, which was not without its charm. Every farm had its ledges, thickets, swamps, and outlying wastes, covered with rambling, untutored vegetation; alternating with green meadows and fertile fields, and mingling a spice of rudeness with the gentler

traits of the scene. Tiny lakelets smiled and scintillated in the valleys; here and there a late-blooming apple-tree scattered the fragrant snow of its petals over a green hillside. Overhead, arched a sky without a cloud; depth be yond depth of illimitable, dazzling blue. And the quietude was perfect, though a quietude so voiceful! Sweetened only—not disturbed-by twitterings of birds and dreamy hum of insects, soft whisperings of leaves and babblings of wayside brooks.

Through all this light and glow, this warm color and various melody, this fresh, joyous, abundant life, the funeral procession, with its hearse and coffin and mourners, crept like a black, devouring shadow. A sorrowful enough sight, at best, with its hard realities of human waste and woe; but how immitigably bitter to all such as are insensible to the comfort breathed through the inspired declaration,"That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die!" For one miserable moment, I tried to identify my mind with Mr. Warren's, and look at the landscape through his eyes. It was as if I had viewed it through a smokeblackened glass. Without the hope of a Perfect Day yet to dawn, through whose splendor no funeral train shall march, all the glory of the opening June seemed but a hollow mockery of joy, beside that trailing shadow of death and gloom.

The burial ground occupied the rounded summit and slope of a hill, by the roadside. It was a stony, barren spot enough, notwithstanding that a few daisies and thistles did their small best to make it beautiful;-obviously, the founders thereof had not thought it worth while to waste any soil capable of a present yield of grain-sheaves, upon the prospect of the future harvest of immortality. There was a sufficiently abundant crop of grave-stones, however; which stony outgrowth was to be found in every stage of freshness and decay,-from the disagreeably new, sharpcut, white, modern monument, to dark, time-graven, moss

grown head-stones, fast crumbling away and mingling their dust with that which they had so ineffectually sought to memorialize. These seemed to have their allotted period for flourishing and decay, not less than the weeds and flowers, albeit, of somewhat longer duration.

We all gathered around the narrow niche in the damp ground, and watched the coffin lowered to its place, and listened to the solemn words of the Committal, and heard the dread rattle of the three-fold fall of earth on its lid"earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and gave thanks for the good examples of the faithful departed, and prayed to be raised from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness. When Mr. Taylor's voice ceased, there were a few moments of deep, uncovered silence; then, two men seized their spades, and began to fill up the grave. With the fall of the first shovelful, came the dull thud of a large stone on the coffin, cruelly wounding the white dove, and inflicting a yet deeper hurt upon Mr. Warrren's sensitive heart. He gave an irritated start, knitting his brows; then, as a second hollow sound smote his ear, he rushed forward, and caught the man's arm,"

"Good Heavens!" he cried, bitterly, "is there no earth, in all Shiloh, to throw on my dead child, but that!"

There was an embarrassed silence. Mr. Taylor, with his features working convulsively, stooped and began, in a blind, unreasoning, mechanical way, to pick out the stones from that side of the pile nearest him.” One or two of the bystanders felt constrained to follow his example, though with manifest reluctance and a latent fear of making themselves ridiculous; but the great body of practical-minded farmers shook their heads over such inconvenient acuteness of feeling, and waste of time and labor; and Major Burcham officiously laid his hand on Mr. Warren's shoulder, and tried to draw him aside, with some commonplace, reiterated assurance that the "soul was gone, and the body only an empty casket, sir, only an empty casket!"

—and was shaken off with an angry rudeness that considerably ruffled his dignity. At this juncture, William Herman stepped forth and showed himself the same coolheaded, quick-witted, and kind-hearted character, here, that I had found him to be in the sick-room.

"Miss Essie," said he, quietly, "your barn is nearest ; is there any straw in it ?"

"Oh! plenty, thank you; "-catching his idea at once, and feeling a quick and grateful relief, that was shared by everybody within hearing. "Bring as much as you

want, please."

The straw was soon brought,-two or three offering to help, and the coffin covered to a sufficient depth to soften and deaden any fall and sound of stone or earth. The grave was then rapidly filled, and rounded over; most of the people waiting until the work was finished;—a custom which, though it has a sufficiently stoical look to unaccustomed eyes, seems to have its root in the heart's tenderest and softest feelings. We do not readily leave our most treasured things to be disposed of by strange and careless hands.

When all was done, the concourse broke up slowly, and dispersed itself over the graveyard, taking advantage of the opportunity to review places consecrated by the ashes of forefathers and compatriots, now intermixing indistinguishably, and some of them, doubtless, reappearing above the earth in the shape of grass and flowers, to show how much of old material is inevitably blended with the freshest novelty, of life, nature, or art. Mrs. Divine and Mrs. Prescott stood gravely by a group of half-a-dozen, or more, head-stones, where sons, brothers, and husband had fallen together; and I strayed off by myself to the oldest portion of the ground, into which the most ancient life of Shiloh had subsided, and began trying to restore some of the inscriptions, by scraping away the mosses and lichens from the half-obliterated letters,-taking a quaint and sad pleas

ure in bringing back to a temporary legibility and possibility of recognition, some name which had long ago faded out of the village memory, and so cheating Oblivion a little longer of its prey. Very commonplace names they were, belonging to that long roll which the world willingly lets die; not one of them being able to impart to its monument any historic interest or poetic immortality, to repay me for my trouble. Yet I worked on, well pleased to see them take shape and meaning under my fingers; and thankful to every one of their owners for having added something to the quaint impressiveness and the thoughtfecundity of the place, by depositing his ashes there, and causing the vaguest shadow of his shade to flit across my imagination.

In some cases the dates alone could be restored, the forlorn little human identities being quite lost; which gave me a curious impression that not people, but Years, had laid themselves down under the sod; as glad to be done with sunshine and snow, calm and tempest, as their human bedfellows with toil and pleasure, battle and bivouac. It was pitiful to notice, I thought, following out the idea, how few of them had signalized themselves by any beautiful or noble deeds-any great wrong righted, or wide redemption achieved-that might tend to exalt their memory above others; in fact, the greater part of those which individualized themselves in my recollection, did it in virtue of the mischief they had wrought. The most of them, however, were as uninteresting as their mortal companions, and perhaps, after all, were the more to be really reverenced, on that account. The sterling usefulness of doing quiet duties in quiet ways, unobtrusively and uncomplainingly, is one which, though the world may make little account of it, God will surely bless and abundantly reward. Of such humble, unattractive lives, is the Book of Life chiefly made up, I imagine.

A numerous group of head-stones, all bearing one fam