54 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



thought, too, of those I should lie with, having with 

 them my after life ; and thinking of them I was no 

 longer alone. I thought of them not as others think, 

 those others of a strange race. What do they think ? 

 They think so many things! The materialist, the 

 scientist, would say: They have no existence; they 

 ceased to be anything when their flesh was turned to 

 dust, or burned to ashes, and their minds, or souls, 

 were changed to some other form of energy, or motion, 

 or affection of matter, or whatever they call it. The 

 believer would not say of them, or of the immaterial 

 part of them, that they had gone into a world of 

 light, that in a dream or vision he had seen them 

 walking in an air of glory; but he might hold that 

 they had been preached to in Hades some nineteen 

 centuries ago, and had perhaps repented of their 

 barbarous deeds. Or he might think, since he has 

 considerable latitude allowed him on the point, that 

 the imperishable parts of them are here at this very 

 spot, tangled in dust that was once flesh and bones, 

 sleeping like chrysalids through a long winter, to be 

 raised again at the sound of a trumpet blown by an 

 angel to a second conscious life, happy or miserable 

 as may be willed. 



I imagine none of these things, for they were with 

 me in the twilight on the barrow in crowds, sitting 

 and standing in groups, and many lying on their 

 sides on the turf below, their heads resting in their 

 hands. They, too, all had their faces turned towards 



