There he lies, in affectionate decorum,
beside the brother he hated; and thus does the greater good wipe out
the individual wrong.
So now, as in ancient times, we toil steeply up here, with the dead
upon his bier; for not often in Tiverton do we depend on that uncouth
monstrosity, the hearse. It is not that we do not own one,--a rigid box
of that name has belonged to us now for many a year; and when Sudleigh
came out with a new one, plumes, trappings, and all, we broached the
idea of emulating her. But the project fell through after Brad
Freeman's contented remark that he guessed the old one would last us
out. He "never heard no complaint from anybody 't ever rode in it."
That placed our last journey on a homely, humorous basis, and we
smiled, and reflected that we preferred going up the hill borne by
friendly hands, with the light of heaven falling on our coffin-lids.
The antiquary would set much store by our headstones, did he ever find
them out. Certain of them are very ancient, according to our ideas; for
they came over from England, and are now fallen into the grayness of
age. They are woven all over with lichens, and the blackberry binds
them fast. Well, too, for them! They need the grace of some such
veiling; for most of them are alive, even to this day, with warning
skulls, and awful cherubs compounded of bleak, bald faces and sparsely
feathered wings.
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