Two undertakers now lifted me from my bed, one of them seizing me by the shoulders, the other by the feet, and I felt myself placed within a leaden coffin supported upon trestles. I did my utmost now to make one last desperate effort to rouse myself out of my trance, but in vain.
"Oh, if they should nail me up!" I thought.
Then I was left alone all day, and remember a great bustle and whispering going on in the house. All were talking of my funeral. At length the fatal hour arrived! The undertakers entered my room again. Good Heavens! they were actually going to solder me down. The next instant the leaden lid was down upon me, and I was soon tightly secured. Then commenced the knocking in of the nails of the outer coffin. How painfully distinct was the sound of the hammer! I remember counting each nail as it was driven in. At length the task was completed, and I only awaited the hearse to carry me to my last home.
Then there was more bustle, the meeting of friends, etc., when after waiting a little longer, I heard the footsteps of the bearers. I felt myself lifted upon the shoulders of the men and carried downstairs. A crowd had evidently collected round the door, for I heard the muffled sound of voices gossipping, but could not distinguish what they said. Only the tolling of the church bell jarred upon my ears. Then the procession began. How slowly it moved along!
"Oh! if I could even now awake!" thought I, "it might not be too late. If I could make sufficient movement with my limbs to overturn the coffin, or even had strength to call out, I should even now be saved."
But all in vain—rigid, motionless as ever, in spite of my earnest prayers to be restored to life. I felt myself borne leisurely on—whither? Oh, horror! to the cold and narrow grave—to the abode of the dead. My last hope died within me when I felt the procession stop, and I knew that it was already arrived at the cemetery. I remember hearing faintly the tones of the parson's voice as he read the ceremony for the burial of the dead. The coffin was now lowered into the grave, and I heard with awful distinctness the words "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," followed by the rattling of the three handfuls of earth upon my coffin lid. My last hope was now gone. In another moment I should be covered up with mould and left alone to die miserably.
"Oh!" groaned I, in spirit, "it is all over with me!" as I heard the mould tumbling heavily upon me.
I knew that the grave was now covered up, for the voices of my friends were quite inaudible, and all was silent.
What a terrible feeling of isolation was mine! Cut off completely from the rest of the world by some feet of earth, alive, yet supposed to be dead, deserted by friends and doomed at length to awaken only to suffer a death of all deaths most horrible! Had I still believed Molly to be dead, it would have been some consolation to me to die; nay, how gladly would I have welcomed death that I might meet her in a better land. But, alas, I knew that Molly still lived, and after death I should be further away from her than ever. This thought was agony to me. One thing, however, somewhat consoled me, though it was but poor consolation.
"We must all die," I thought.