The old burying-ground lay on the edge of a pine wood, on the outskirts of the village. It was more than half a century since the sod had been disturbed, and grass and daisies possessed the paths which once lay plain between mounds which years had smoothed to almost the common level. There had been no encroachment of a growing town upon its borders to break its quiet with the noise and hurry of a strenuous life. It lay, an utter quietness, in the beauty of the summer afternoon, a spot in which it was impossible not to feel that a great peace must have infolded those whose bodies had mouldered to dust in its tranquil keeping.
Yet perhaps Esther was the only one of the little company who felt the pensive influence of the place, and she had never stood before in an old New England burying-ground. Even she did not keep it long, for Ruel Saxon was full of a bustling eagerness to find the graves they had come to seek, and the quaintness of the mortuary devices and inscriptions on the low gray stones soon claimed her whole attention.
“Your great-great-grandfather made up a good many of these epitaphs,” observed the old gentleman to Mr. Hadley. “He was a wonderful hand for that. Folks were always going to him when their relations died—those that wanted anything except verses of scripture under the names. Here’s his own grave now!” he exclaimed, pausing in his rapid searching, and not a little pleased with himself that he had so quickly found a spot which he had not seen in many years:—
“‘Sacred to the memory of
JABEZ BRIDGEWOOD.
Born Aug. 1, 1735—died Nov. 12, 1810.’
“That’s his stone, and no mistake.”
Mr. Hadley was bending over it now. Below the inscription which the old man had read were four lines which the creeping moss had almost obliterated. He took a knife from his pocket and scraped a few words.
“Ah,” he said, lifting his head, “there is evidently one he didn’t write:—
“‘Oh Friends, seek not his merits to disclose,
Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.’”
“No,” said Ruel Saxon, who did not recognize the slightly changed familiar lines, “he didn’t write that. But he picked it out, and left word in writing to have it put on his stone. I remember hearing my grandfather talk about it. Some folks thought ’twas queer he didn’t write his own epitaph. It always tickled him so when he got a chance to do it for other folks.”
“Poor man,” said Mr. Hadley, with a smile, “it was probably his only chance of publication. Think what that must have meant to him! But I’m glad he recognized a superior poet. It’s a mark of greatness.”