_They died the, same day and their bones rest
here, till the final resurrection_.
He glanced at the date,--
JUNE 14th, 1805.
And he had never heard of it!--never guessed it! But then, he had not
heard at all from Dorcas. Poor Dorcas! how had she borne this sudden and
terrible bereavement? All that he might have been to her in her sorrow,
for one moment all that he had _not_ been, floated by him. The yellow
melted away that had so long incrusted his soul, and he felt on his
bared breast, as it were, the fresh air of truth and constancy,--of all
that makes life worth the having.
He drove away,--away over the broad fields and the well-remembered
meadows, out upon the Dummerston road, and over the Ridge Hill. Well,
life was not all behind him!
He took out his watch. It was time to keep his appointment. He left
the horse at the tavern-door, and walked up the road towards the
trysting-place, the old pear-tree. He looked wistfully at it, and sprang
over the wall, with considerable effort, as he could not but admit
to himself. That old pear-tree! They had called it old fifteen years
ago,--and here it stood, as proud and strong as then! The two great
branches that stretched towards the south, and which he had often
thought had something benignant in their aspect, as if they would bless
the wayfarer or the sojourner under their shade, still reached forth
and spread abroad their strong arms.
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