That day every slightest line
and every colour of that bitter, barren coast impressed themselves on
my mind, and I saw more distinctly than I had ever done before the old
church with red-brown roofs and square dogmatic tower, the forlorn
village, the grey undulations of the dreary hills, whose ring of trees
showed aloft like a plume. In the church the faces of the girls were
discomposed with grief, and they wept hysterically in each other's
arms. The querulous voice of the organ, the hideous hymn, and the
grating voice of the aged parson standing in white surplice on the
altar-steps! Dear heart! I saw thee in thy garden while others looked
unto that sunless hole, while old men, white-haired and tottering,
impelled by senile curiosity, pressed forward and looked down into
that comfortless hole.
The crowd quickly dispersed; the relatives and the friends of the
deceased, as they returned home, sought those who were most agreeable
and sympathetic, and matters of private interest were discussed. Those
who had come from a distance consulted their watches, and an apology
to life was implicit in their looks, and the time they had surrendered
to something outside of life evidently struck them as being strangely
disproportionate.
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