THE GARDENS OF THE DEAD 



grow beside the church and shower their petals over the 

 grey stones of the tombs, and Spring flowers have been 

 set in the grass to nod beside the headstones sleepily. 

 Others are bare and bleak, standing exposed to wind and 

 weather on a hillside, with stone walls about them, and a 

 church buffeted by every storm ; yet these are sometimes 

 most peaceful gardens, and Ling and Gorse scent the air, 

 and twisted Fir trees, and gnarled old Pines, all leaning 

 over, wind -bent, stand guard over the sleepers ; bees busy 

 in the heather, lizards green as emeralds, and the bright 

 butterflies give the feeling of incessant life ; they give 

 that glorious feeling that the great pulse still beats ; 

 that Nature all alive is yet at one with the dead. 



The gardener of these our dead, what a queer man is 

 he ! What a peculiar profession he follows ! To bury 

 is but to plant the dead that they may flower into that 

 new life. And he is usually a humorous character, a 

 man of well-chosen words who surveys his garden of 

 headstones and has a word for each. He is no respecter 

 of persons, since in the tomb all are equal, and to see him 

 at work preparing a fresh place for burial is to think that 

 the gravedigger's work is no melancholy task. In the 

 heat of summer, half buried in the grave himself, he sings 

 some old catch as he shovels up the earth. " Poor little 

 lamb," he may say of a dead child ; " well, thee'll bide 

 here against our Lord wants 'e." 



I have seen such a man, his clothes brown with grave 

 earth, a Daisy between his lips (something to mumble, 

 as he does not smoke on duty), and watched his face as 

 the lytchet gate clicks. His daughter, a flower herself, 

 is bringing his dinner, which he eats cheerfully leaning 

 against one side of the grave for support. This, with a 

 thrush singing somewhere, and the wheeze of the church 

 clock, and the frivolous screams of swifts make death a 

 comfortable picture. 



235 2G2 



