Crying for the Light, Volume 3

‘Worldly people,' wrote one of our greatest novelists, ‘never look so worldly as at a funeral. ' The truth of this was very apparent at the funeral of the deceased Baronet. There was the usual parade of outward grief at the churchyard, and in the town all the blinds were drawn down and the shops shut-with the exception of those set apart for the sale of beer and wine and spirits, which were rather better patronized than usual. It is said grief makes men thirsty. That certainly was the case at Sloville, for the usual topers of the place had been increased in number by the addition of numerous thirsty souls from all the adjacent country, drawn together not so much by grief as by a pardonable curiosity.

Heavily tolled the bell of the old-fashioned church, in the gloomy vaults of which slept the family ancestors, whose varied virtues were recorded in marble in all parts of the building, and whose rotting carcases poisoned the atmosphere of the place, and had done so for many generations.