Their bright eyes were fixed on me; their
lips apart. I took courage, and led the fated pair to a new-made
grave, where for a few moments, in the bright and silent midnight,
they stood alone. But suddenly there was a multitude of people among
the graves.
Each family tomb had given up its inhabitants, who, one by one,
through distant years, had been borne to its dark chamber, but now
came forth and stood in a pale group together. There was the gray
ancestor, the aged mother, and all their descendants, some withered
and full of years, like themselves, and others in their prime;
there, too, were the children who went prattling to the tomb, and
there the maiden who yielded her early beauty to death's embrace,
before passion had polluted it. Husbands and wives arose, who had lain
many years side by side, and young mothers who had forgotten to kiss
their first babes, though pillowed so long on their bosoms. Many had
been buried in the habiliments of life, and still wore their ancient
garb; some were old defenders of the infant colony, and gleamed
forth in their steel-caps and bright breast-plates, as if starting
up at an Indian war-cry; other venerable shapes had been pastors of
the church, famous among the New England clergy, and now leaned with
hands clasped over their gravestones, ready to call the congregation
to prayer.
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