"He seems only asleep! And he looks happy."
"He is happy, dear!—he must be happy!"—and Angus drew her gently away. "Poor and helpless as he was, still he found a friend in you at the last, and now all his troubles are over. He has gone to Heaven with the help and blessing of your kind and tender heart, my Mary! I am sure of that!"
She sighed, and her eyes were clouded with sadness.
"Heaven seems very far away sometimes!" she said. "And—often I wonder—what is Heaven?"
"Love!" he answered—"Love made perfect—Love that knows no change and no end! 'Nothing is sweeter than love; nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing broader, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven and in earth, for love is born of God, and can rest only in God above all things created.'"
He quoted the beautiful words from the Imitation of Christ reverently and tenderly.
"Is that not true, my Mary?" he said, kissing her.
"Yes, Angus! For us I know it is true!—I wish it were true for all the world!"
And then there came a lovely day, perfectly brilliant and intensely calm, on which "old David," was quietly buried in the picturesque little churchyard of Weircombe. Mary and Angus together had chosen his resting-place, a grassy knoll swept by the delicate shadows of a noble beech-tree, and facing the blue expanse of the ocean. Every man who had known and talked with him in the village offered to contribute to the expenses of his funeral, which, however, were very slight. The good Vicar would accept no burial fee, and all who knew the story of the old "tramp's" rescue from the storm by Mary Deane, and her gentle care of him afterwards, were anxious to prove that they too were not destitute of that pure and true charity which "suffereth long and is kind." Had David Helmsley been buried as David Helmsley the millionaire, it is more than likely that he might not have had one sincere mourner at his grave, with the exception of his friend, Sir Francis Vesey, and his valet Benson. There would have been a few "business" men,—and some empty carriages belonging to fashionable folk sent out of so-called "respect"; but of the many he had entertained, assisted and benefited, not one probably would have taken the trouble to pay him, so much as a last honour. As the poor tramping old basket-maker, whose failing strength would not allow him to earn much of a living, his simple funeral was attended by nearly a whole village,—honest men who stood respectfully bareheaded as the coffin was lowered into the grave—kind-hearted women who wept for "poor lonely soul"—as they expressed it,—and little children who threw knots of flowers into that mysterious dark hole in the ground "where people went to sleep for a little, and then came out again as angels"—as their parents told them. It was a simple ceremony, performed in a spirit of perfect piety, and without any hypocrisy or formality. And when it was all over, and the villagers had dispersed to their homes, Mr. Twitt on his way "down street," as he termed it, from the churchyard, paused at Mary Deane's cottage to unburden his mind of a weighty resolution.
"Ye see, Mis' Deane, it's like this," he said—"I as good as promised the poor old gaffer as I'd do 'im a tombstone for nuthin', an' I'm 'ere to say as I aint a-goin' back on that. But I must take my time on it. I'd like to think out a speshul hepitaph—an' doin' portry takes a bit of 'ard brain work. So when the earth's set down on 'is grave a bit, an' the daisies is a-growin' on the grass, I'll mebbe 'ave got an idea wot'll please ye. 'E aint left any mossel o' paper writ out like, with wot 'e'd like put on 'im, I s'pose?"