"That is because she is released from her suffering," said I to the boy.
At last, the coffin, richly decked with flowers, swayed out of the parish church, where, in the old days, the woodman's wife had been baptised and married, on its way to the cemetery. The priests and the choir sang the loud, clear requiem, the bells tolled over the village far out into the woods and the candles flickered in the sunlight. A long train of men and women passed through the broad village street. We walked behind the coffin, carrying lighted candles in our hands and praying as we went.
The cemetery lies outside the village, on a gentle eminence, between fields and meadows. It is far from small, for the parish stretches to a great distance over hill and dale. It is enclosed with a plank fence and contains many crosses of wood and rusty iron; and in the middle rises the image of Christ crucified.
Before this image, on the right, was the deep grave, at the exact spot where, years ago, they had buried our mother's two children who had died. A mound of freshly-dug earth lay on either side of the grave.
Here the bearers let the coffin down to the ground and stripped it of all its finery; and it slid down into the pit as poor as it had left the cottage in the wood.
"Thou to-day, I to-morrow; and so I am content," murmured father.
And the priest said:
"May she rest in the Lord!"
Then they cast clods of earth into the grave and went away, went to the inn, tasted bread and wine and talked of everyday things. When it was twelve o'clock and, according to custom, the bells began to toll once more, as a last farewell to the departed, the men and women of the forest set out to return to their mountain valley.
We who belonged to one another sat together for a while longer and spoke sadly of the time that must now come and how to arrange for it. Then we took leave of one another: my father and brothers and sisters went home to the cottage in the wood, to live and die where mother had lived and died.