| 376 | 377 | 378 | 379 | 380 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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though it would be hard to read it now. I haven't many by me at this
time of year, but these shelves will be full - next summer.'
The child admired and praised his work, and shortly afterwards
departed; thinking, as she went, how strange it was, that this old
man, drawing from his pursuits, and everything around him, one
stern moral, never contemplated its application to himself; and, while
he dwelt upon the uncertainty of human life, seemed both in word and
deed to deem himself immortal. But her musings did not stop here, for
she was wise enough to think that by a good and merciful adjustment
this must be human nature, and that the old sexton, with his plans
for next summer, was but a type of all mankind.
Full of these meditations, she reached the church. It was easy to find
the key belonging to the outer door, for each was labelled on a scrap of
yellow parchment. Its very turning in the lock awoke a hollow sound,
and when she entered with a faltering step, the echoes that it raised in
closing, made her start.
If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more strongly,
because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond, and through
which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what was the deep
impression of finding herself alone in that solemn building, where the
very light, coming through sunken windows, seemed old and grey, and
the air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay,
purified by time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch
and aisle, and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone! Here was
the broken pavement, worn, so long ago, by pious feet, that Time,
stealing on the pilgrims' steps, had trodden out their track, and left
but crumbling stones. Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch,
the sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately
tomb on which no epitaph remained - all - marble, stone, iron, wood,
and dust - one common monument of ruin. The best work and the
worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least
imposing - both of Heaven's work and Man's - all found one common
level here, and told one common tale.
Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were
effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded
hands - cross-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars - girded
with their swords, and cased in armour as they had lived. Some of
these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of mail, hanging
upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty hooks. Broken and
dilapidated as they were, they yet retained their ancient form, and
something of their ancient aspect. Thus violent deeds live after men
upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in
mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but
atoms of earth themselves.
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