There was the gray ancestor, the aged
mother, and all their descendants, some withered and full of years, like
themselves, and others in their prime; there, too, were the children who
went prattling to the tomb, and there the maiden who yielded her early
beauty to death's embrace, before passion had polluted it. Husbands and
wives arose, who had lain many years side by side, and young mothers who
had forgotten to kiss their first babes, though pillowed so long on their
bosoms. Many had been buried in the habiliments of life, and still wore
their ancient garb; some were old defenders of the infant colony, and
gleamed forth in their steel-caps and bright breastplates, as if starting
up at an Indian war-cry; other venerable shapes had been pastors of the
church, famous among the New England clergy, and now leaned with hands
clasped over their gravestones, ready to call the congregation to prayer.
There stood the early settlers, those old illustrious ones, the heroes of
tradition and fireside legends, the men of history whose features had
been so long beneath the sod that few alive could have remembered them.
There, too, were faces of former townspeople, dimly recollected from
childhood, and others, whom Leonard and Alice had wept in later years,
but who now were most terrible of all, by their ghastly smile of
recognition.
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