University of Virginia Library

9. IX.
TWO FUNERALS.

Nor is this all, alas! There comes not one funeral procession
only. The first has scarcely entered the cemetery
when a second arrives. Side by side the dead of this day
are to be laid: our old friend the negro, and the lovely
young lady we have mentioned, — even the fairest of Mr.
Frisbie's own children.

For it is she. The sweetest of the faces Fessenden's
saw that stormy night at the window, and yearned to be
with in the bright room where the fire was, — that dear
warm face is cold in yonder coffin which the afflicted family
are attending to the tomb.

And Frisbie, as we have somewhere said, loved his children.
And in the anguish of his bereavement he had not
heeded the singular and somewhat humiliating fact that
his daughter had issued from the portal of Time in company
with one of his most despised tenants, — that, in the
same hour, almost at the same moment, Death had summoned
them, leading them together, as it were, one with
his right hand and one with his left, the way of all the
world. So that here was a surprise for the proud and
grief-smitten parent.

“What is all that, Stephen?” he demands, with sudden
consternation.

“It seems to be another funeral, sir. They 're buryin'
somebody next lot to yours.”

“Who, who, Stephen?”

“I — I ruther guess it 's the old nigger, sir,” says
Stephen.

The mighty man is shaken. Wrath and sorrow and

insulted affection convulse him for a moment. His face
grows purple, then pale, and he struggles with his neckcloth,
which is choking him. He sees the tall form of Gingerford
at the grave, and knows what it is to wish to
murder a man. Were those two Christian neighbors quite
alone, in this solitude of the dead, I fear one of them
would soon be a fit subject for a coroner's inquest and an
epitaph. O pride and hatred! with what madness can
you inspire a mortal man! O Fessenden's! bless thy
stars that thou art not the only fool alive this day, nor
the greatest!

Fessenden's walked alone to the funeral, talking by himself,
and now and then laughing. Gentleman Bill thought
his conduct indecorous, and reproved him for it.

“Gracious!” said the lad, “don't you see who I 'm talkin'
with?”

“No, sir, — I can't say I see anybody, sir.”

“No?” exclaimed the astonished youth. “Why, it 's
the old man, goin' to his own funeral!”

This, you may say, was foolishness; but, O, it was innocent
and beautiful foolishness, compared with that of Frisbie
and his sympathizers, when they discovered the negro
burial, and felt that their mourning was too respectable to
be the near companion of the mourning of those poor
blacks, and that their beautiful dead was too precious to
be laid in the earth beside their dead.

What could be done? Indignation and sorrow availed
nothing. The tomb of the lovely was prepared, and it only
remained to pity the affront to her ashes, as she was committed
to the chill depths amid silence and choking tears.
It is done; and the burial of the old negro is deferentially
delayed until the more aristocratic rites are ended.

Gingerford set the example of standing with his hat off
in the yellow sunshine and wintry air, with his noble head

bowed low, while the last prayer was said at the maiden's
sepulture. Then he lifted up his face, radiant; and the
flashing and rainbow - spanned torrent of his eloquence
broke forth. He had reserved his forces for this hour.
He had not the Williams family and their friends alone
for an audience, but many who had come to attend the
young lady's funeral remained to hear the Judge. It was
worth their while. Finely as he had discoursed at the hut
of the negroes, before the corpse was brought out, that
was scarcely the time, that was certainly not the place, for
a crowning effort of his genius. But here his larger audience,
the open air, the blue heavens, the graves around,
the burial of the young girl side by side with the old
slave, all contributed to inspire him. Human brotherhood,
universal love, the stern democracy of death, immortality,
— these were his theme. Life, incrusted with conventionalities;
Death, that strips them all away. This is the
portal (pointing to the grave) at which the soul drops all
its false encumbrances, — rank, riches, sorrow, shame. It
enters naked into eternity. There worldly pride and arrogance
have no place. There false judgment goes out
like a sick man's night-lamp, in the morning light of truth.
In the courts of God only spiritual distinctions prevail.
That you were a lord in this life will be of no account
there, where the humblest Christian love is preferred before
the most brilliant selfishness, — where the master is degraded,
and the servant is exalted. And so forth, and so
forth; a brief but eloquent address, of which it is to be
regretted that no report exists.

Then came the prayer, — for the Judge had a gift that
way too; and the tenderness and true feeling with which
he spoke of the old negro and the wrongs of his race drew
tears from many eyes. Then a hymn was sung, — those
who had stayed to sneer joining their voices seriously with
those of the lowly mourners.