"For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain; he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them....""Well, it ARE his," a woman in the background interjected in a frightened whine.
The tall youth staggered to his feet."If you don't hold your mouths I'll turn you all out o' here, the whole lot of you," he cried with many oaths."G'wan, minister...don't let 'em faze you....""Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept....Behold, I show you a mystery.We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump....For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruption shall have put on incorruption, and when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in Victory...."One by one the mighty words fell on Charity's bowed head, soothing the horror, subduing the tumult, mastering her as they mastered the drink-dazed creatures at her back.Mr.Miles read to the last word, and then closed the book.
"Is the grave ready?" he asked.
Liff Hyatt, who had come in while he was reading, nodded a "Yes," and pushed forward to the side of the mattress.The young man on the bench who seemed to assert some sort of right of kinship with the dead woman, got to his feet again, and the proprietor of the stove joined him.Between them they raised up the mattress; but their movements were unsteady, and the coat slipped to the floor, revealing the poor body in its helpless misery.Charity, picking up the coat, covered her mother once more.Liff had brought a lantern, and the old woman who had already spoken took it up, and opened the door to let the little procession pass out.The wind had dropped, and the night was very dark and bitterly cold.The old woman walked ahead, the lantern shaking in her hand and spreading out before her a pale patch of dead grass and coarse-leaved weeds enclosed in an immensity of blackness.
Mr.Miles took Charity by the arm, and side by side they walked behind the mattress.At length the old woman with the lantern stopped, and Charity saw the light fall on the stooping shoulders of the bearers and on a ridge of upheaved earth over which they were bending.Mr.Miles released her arm and approached the hollow on the other side of the ridge; and while the men stooped down, lowering the mattress into the grave, he began to speak again.
"Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery....He cometh up and is cut down...he fleeth as it were a shadow....Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death....""Easy there...is she down?" piped the claimant to the stove; and the young man called over his shoulder:
"Lift the light there, can't you?"
There was a pause, during which the light floated uncertainly over the open grave.Someone bent over and pulled out Mr.Miles's coat----("No, no--leave the handkerchief," he interposed)--and then Liff Hyatt, coming forward with a spade, began to shovel in the earth.
"Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear sister here departed, we therefore commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust..." Liff's gaunt shoulders rose and bent in the lantern light as he dashed the clods of earth into the grave."God--it's froze a'ready," he muttered, spitting into his palm and passing his ragged shirt-sleeve across his perspiring face.
"Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself..." The last spadeful of earth fell on the vile body of Mary Hyatt, and Liff rested on his spade, his shoulder blades still heaving with the effort.
"Lord, have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon us..."Mr.Miles took the lantern from the old woman's hand and swept its light across the circle of bleared faces."Now kneel down, all of you," he commanded, in a voice of authority that Charity had never heard.She knelt down at the edge of the grave, and the others, stiffly and hesitatingly, got to their knees beside her.Mr.Miles knelt, too."And now pray with me--you know this prayer," he said, and he began:
"Our Father which art in Heaven..." One or two of the women falteringly took the words up, and when he ended, the lank-haired man flung himself on the neck of the tall youth."It was this way," he said."I tole her the night before, I says to her..." The reminiscence ended in a sob.
Mr.Miles had been getting into his coat again.He came up to Charity, who had remained passively kneeling by the rough mound of earth.
"My child, you must come.It's very late."
She lifted her eyes to his face: he seemed to speak out of another world.
"I ain't coming: I'm going to stay here."
"Here? Where? What do you mean?"
"These are my folks.I'm going to stay with them."Mr.Miles lowered his voice."But it's not possible--you don't know what you are doing.You can't stay among these people: you must come with me."She shook her head and rose from her knees.The group about the grave had scattered in the darkness, but the old woman with the lantern stood waiting.Her mournful withered face was not unkind, and Charity went up to her.
"Have you got a place where I can lie down for the night?" she asked.Liff came up, leading the buggy out of the night.He looked from one to the other with his feeble smile."She's my mother.She'll take you home," he said; and he added, raising his voice to speak to the old woman: "It's the girl from lawyer Royall's--Mary's girl...you remember...."The woman nodded and raised her sad old eyes to Charity's.When Mr.Miles and Liff clambered into the buggy she went ahead with the lantern to show them the track they were to follow; then she turned back, and in silence she and Charity walked away together through the night.