Mavis and Dale were just inside
the door; and Mr. Silcox close by, whispering, and pointing out
several lords and ladies near the chancel steps. The service was long
but very beautiful, with giant candles burning by the draped bier,
organ music that seemed to swell and rumble in the pit of one's
stomach, and light voices of singing boys that made one vibrate as if
one had been turned into glass--all stirring one to a quite
meaningless regret, not for the man who lay deaf and dumb and blind
beneath the velvet pall, but because of vague thoughts about children
who die young and have wings to hover over those they loved down here
below. And, oh, the increasing heat of the church, the oppressive
crush, the heavy odors of flowers and crape and perspiration! When at
last one emerged, and the open air touched one's forehead, it was like
coming out of an oven into a cold bath.
Then the remains were consigned to the family vault in the small
graveyard behind the church--the crowd filling every vista, the bells
tolling, and the soldiers discharging a cannon and making one jump at
each regularly timed discharge. Mavis, turning her eyes in all
directions, looked at everything with intense interest--at the
gentlefolk, now inextricably mixed up with the tenantry and the mob;
at her husband, standing so black and solemn, with a face that might
have belonged to a marble statue; at the puff of smoke that crept
upward when the gun went bang, at the sunlight on the church tower, at
the birds flying so high and so joyous above its battlements.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174