That “Cynthia Ann” had faults is evident from the tone. But I thought as I turned from the spot, if her greatest fault lay in not allowing herself to be “druv,” her prospects were better than the average.
What a contrast was the line inscribed upon a tombstone directly opposite:—
“He sleeps in Heaven.”
Mere speculation only, and wild at that. The extravagant notion that a person sleeps in Paradise must have emanated from the brain of some sluggard, who thought that heaven without sleep would be a wearisome place. The “sleeper’s” name was Gregg, and from a representation of a pair of scissors cut upon the slab I presumed he was a tailor. On making inquiry of the sexton, busily engaged closing a grave at the time, I found my supposition was right. Gregg was a tailor, but met death at the heels of a horse. To use the sexton’s own words, which were spoken in pure Greek—
“Begorra he was a tailor, and it was meself that planted him there. He was killed in the barn beyant, while sthrivin’ to pull the makin’s of a fish-line out of the tail of owld Gleason’s stallion.”
When a person learns what his occupation had been, and how he died, the assertion that he had gone to heaven, strikes one as too ridiculous for anything.
THE SEXTON.
Not less amusing or quaint was the verse inscribed upon the plain marble slab which marked the resting-place of Mr. and Mrs. Barradier. The stone was probably put up by some acquaintance of the deceased couple who knew that their marriage had been anything but a happy one; the verse upon it also informs the passer-by that they left no descendants to perform that pious duty. It said—
“Released from worldly care and strife,