He looked up, and there stood Wyn Warren with his eyes red with crying, and with a great wreath of wild flowers in his hand.
“Please, sir, he liked these best. And there’s a bit of everything here.”
Alwyn looked at the wreath, which was constructed with great skill and of an infinite variety of leaves, berries, and blossoms. Every summer flower lingering in shady corners of the wood had been brought together. There were bits of every different kind of tree—autumn berries, curious seed vessels, grasses and rushes, heather and ferns, moss and lichen—all the woodland world was represented. It could not be a gay wreath with its infinite mixture of tints and forms, but there was the very spirit of the wood in its sober colouring and fresh woody smell.
“It is very beautiful,” said Alwyn. “Yes, he would have liked it very much.”
“He liked the wild things,” said Wyn, “and the creatures; it’s the birds and beasts that ought to follow him.”
“Come,” said Alwyn, “you helped him to all his pleasure in them; come and give him the wreath yourself.”
He took Wyn’s hand and led him, through the sitting-room window, into the room where his young master lay, calm and still, with the bright eyes closed for ever. But the window was uncurtained, and the sun and the sky looked through.
Wyn trembled as he looked. The little carefully-reared boy had never seen death before, and the awe of the sight choked back his tears. Alwyn helped him to lay the wreath on Edgar’s breast, above the white cross already placed there, and then took him out again on to the terrace. Wyn touched his cap and went away; but Alwyn’s silent grief was more comfort to him than any words of consolation would have been, and perhaps Alwyn too was soothed by the sense of fellow-feeling. He was glad to think that the great family vault under the floor of the church, where so many Cunninghams had been laid, could not be opened now, and that Edgar would lie under the turf in the churchyard, with the sky over his head, and the great trees of the wood near at hand.
All the servants and most of the villagers were at that funeral. Wyn Warren was set to walk by Robertson’s side, next after the friends and the family, in which position he felt, in all his trouble, a sort of childish pride. The day was bright, and there was a fresh wind blowing such as Edgar was wont to love, and over the grave, instead of the ordinary hymn, the choir sang some verses about the Heavenly Jerusalem, which seemed to Wyn to picture just the sort of “happy home” where he could fancy that his dear Mr Edgar would dwell.
Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
Continually are green;
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.
Quite through the streets, with silver sound,
The flood of Life doth flow;
Upon whose banks on every side
The Wood of Life doth grow.
There trees for evermore bear fruit,
And evermore do spring;
There evermore the angels sit,
And evermore do sing.