It was soon found, that little grassy mound in the corner by the ivy-covered porch. And then he could bear up no longer. He burst into tears, and throwing himself on the dewy moonlit sward, wept bitterly.
"Oh, mamma, mamma, why did you die? why did you die? What shall I do?" he sobbed in a low, excited tone, "I'm so lonely, mamma! mamma!"
And the quiet night stole on, and the soft winds of June whispered over the motherless boy, weeping there alone in the churchyard.
The sound of footsteps! Harry jumped up and listened, eager, and frightened. The churchyard wicket was opened and shut again, and then he heard a steady measured tread of persons slowly approaching. He was riveted to the spot, and a cold perspiration broke upon his forehead. The steps were nearing, and then, rounding the corner of the tower, the new comers came into sight.
One look was enough, and Harry was off down the other path that led from the churchyard to the further end of the village.
It was only a funeral of a drowned man who had been picked up the previous night upon the shore of Wilton. But the dark, slow-moving figures of the bearers, and the flickering gleam of the lanthorns, made dim by the moonshine, froze his heart with terror, and drove him away from his mother's grave without one word of parting. Perhaps it was better so. It saved him the difficulty and sorrow of having to decide to say good-bye for ever to that grassy sleeping-place where slept the one so dear to him.
Away he ran, heedless, frightened, through the straggling remainder of the village. Not a light was burning, not a person stirring, which was fortunate, though he never paused to see; or think, but hastened on till he fancied he had gone miles; and then, seeing an inviting barn close by the roadside, turned in, and, worn out with fatigue and excitement, soon slept heavily in a low, broken manger full of hay—a strange but welcome bed.