Mokes, having covered himself with glory, now led the way out, and the party turned homeward. Sara and I lingered to read the Latin inscription over the chapel door, “Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur.” John beckoned us toward a shadowed corner where stood a lonely tomb, the horizontal slab across the top bearing no date, and only the initials of a name, “Here lies T----F----.”
“Poor fellow!” said John, “he died by his own hand, alone, at night, on this very spot: a young Frenchman, I was told, but I know nothing more.”
“Is not that enough?” I said. “There is a whole history in those words.”
“There was once a railing separating this tomb from the other graves, as something to be avoided and feared,” said John; “but time, or perhaps the kind hand of charity, has removed the barrier: charity that can pity the despairing, suffering, human creature whose only hope came to this--to die!”
Happening to glance at Sara, I saw her eyes full of tears, and in spite of her effort to keep them back, two great drops rolled down and fell on the dark slab; John saw them, and turned away instantly.
“Why, Sara!” I said, moved almost to tears myself by sudden sympathy.
“Don’t say any thing, please,” answered Sara. “There, it is all over.”
We walked away, and found John standing before a little wooden cross that had once marked a grave; there was no trace of a grave left, only green grass growing over the level ground, while lichen and moss had crept over the rough unpainted wood and effaced the old inscription. A single rose-bush grew behind, planted probably a little slip when the memory of the lost one was green and fresh with tears; now, a wild neglected bush, it waved its green branches and shed its roses year by year over the little cross that stood, veiled in moss, alone, where now no grave remained, as though it said, “He is not here: he is risen.”
“Look,” said John. “Does it not tell its story? Why should we be saddened while we have what that cross typifies?”
That evening, happening to take up Sara’s Bible, I found pinned in on the blank leaf these old verses:
“There is a calm for those who weep, A rest for weary pilgrims found; They softly lie and sweetly sleep Low in the ground.