Words and thoughts hunted in his mind.
'He's gettin' Christian burial. Who gives this woman away? I do. Ashes
to ashes. I never suspected him of livin'.' The conning of the burial
service, shortened to fit the passing of that tiny shade, gave him
pleasurable sensation; films came down on his eyes; he listened like
some old parrot on its perch, his head a little to one side.
'Them as dies young,' he thought, 'goes straight to heaven. We trusts in
God--all mortal men; his godfathers and his godmothers in his baptism.
Well, so it is! I'm not afeared o' death!'
Seeing the little coffin tremble above the hole, he craned his head
still further forward. It sank; a smothered sobbing rose. The old butler
touched the arm in front of him with shaking fingers.
"Don't 'e," he whispered; "he's a-gone to glory."
But, hearing the dry rattle of the earth, he took out his own
handkerchief and put it to his nose.
'Yes, he's a-gone,' he thought; 'another little baby. Old men an'
maidens, young men an' little children; it's a-goin' on all the time.
Where 'e is now there'll be no marryin', no, nor givin' out in marriage;
till death do us part.'
The wind, sweeping across the filled-in hole, carried the rustle of
his husky breathing, the dry, smothered sobbing of the seamstress, out
across the shadows' graves, to those places, to those streets.
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