Affrighted and bewildered, she caught up My and fled to the cottage.
Homer Wilson was carried in due time to the little graveyard. There followed a great train of slowly moving vehicles, for the Wilson family connection was a large one, and his tragic death drew people to come through morbid curiosity. Mr. Prew preached and prayed at length, and the throng lingered long about the grave.
Away behind the stone wall that flanked the far side of the graveyard two figures stood hidden, watching the funeral rites from afar.
Myron had been refused admittance to the Wilson home when she had gone to plead for one look at Homer's face. She had been forbidden to enter the graveyard. But they could not prevent her bringing My through the desolate fields to watch with baby eyes the burial of the man who had saved his life.
There were many black-clad figures that day in the graveyard—many wet eyes—many lamenting lips; but the real mourners stood afar off, as we are told they did one day long ago when a cross with a living Burden was upreared upon a hill.
Mrs. Wilson wept that Homer had been "took unprepared." But who can tell what penitence or prayer purged his soul when, between the hoof-beats, he looked death in the eyes? Who can say there was not time for both plea and pardon in those seconds—if, indeed, there be One to whom prayers go, from whom pardons come—if there be One to whom a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night?
Well, all these things are for us to strive with, and few there be that bring back any trophy of truth from that warfare; yet "still we peer beyond with craving face."
As for Homer Wilson—
"Peace, peace!—he doth not sleep;
He hath awakened from the dream of life."