"I couldn't follow along with you," she said, looking at her
ragged shawl, "for I haven't a decent suit of clothes to walk in.
I wish I could get vent in crying for her like you, but I can't;
all the crying's been drudged and starved out of me long ago.
Don't you think about lighting your fire when you get home. I'll
do that, and get you a drop of tea to comfort you."
She seemed on the point of saying a kind word or two more, when,
seeing the beadle coming toward me, she drew back, as if she was
afraid of him, and left the churchyard.
"Here's my subscription toward the funeral," said the beadle,
giving me back his shilling fee. "Don't say anything about it,
for it mightn't be approved of in a business point of view, if it
came to some people's ears. Has the landlord said anything more
to you? no, I thought not. He's too polite a man to give me the
trouble of pulling him up. Don't stop crying here, my dear. Take
the advice of a man familiar with funerals, and go home."
I tried to take his advice, but it seemed like deserting Mary to
go away when all the rest forsook her.
I waited about till the earth was thrown in and the man had left
the place, then I returned to the grave. Oh, how bare and cruel
it was, without so much as a bit of green turf to soften it! Oh,
how much harder it seemed to live than to die, when I stood alone
looking at the heavy piled-up lumps of clay, and thinking of what
was hidden beneath them!
I was driven home by my own despairing thoughts.
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