CHAPTER XI THE BURYING-GROUND

 Directly in the shelter of the church was the burying-ground. It had first been laid out at the corner of the road, on one side of the great building; but slowly and surely it crept around behind the sheds where the horses were hitched¹ during the Sunday services, and then still farther on to the other side. The first part of the yard was almost filled with little mounds³ and leaning stones, and most of its silent tenants⁴ were forgotten by all save a few old people who lingered far beyond the natural term of life. The new yard, as we called it, was in every way more pretentious⁵ than the old; the headstones were higher, the grass was greener, the mounds were more regular, and the trees and shrubs⁶ were better kept. The bones of many of the dead aristocracy had been dug up out of the old yard by their proud relatives, and carefully laid in the new, where they might rest in the same exclusive surroundings in which they lived while still upon the earth.

 

As a child, these graveyards⁹ had no definite meaning to me, but I never went by them after nightfall if I could possibly go any other way, especially if I chanced to be alone. If I could not avoid going this way, I always kept well to the other side of the road, and walked or ran as fast as I could, with scarcely a glance toward the silent yard and the white stones that gleamed so grimly in the dusk. Sometimes a number of us boys would go through the yard in broad daylight, but even then we preferred almost any other spot.

 

I cannot recall when a sense of the real meaning of a churchyard came full upon me. I have no doubt that I unconsciously felt the gloom of the place before I fully⁷ understood what it really meant.

 

In the summer-time we children were usually taken through the graveyard⁸ on our way home from church; but after the long services even this seemed a pleasant spot. On Sunday we were not afraid, for all the worshippers went home this way.

 

The yards were filled with evergreen¹⁰ trees carefully trimmed and clipped, with here and there a weeping-willow drooping¹¹ its doleful branches to the ground. Why these trees were chosen for the churchyard, I cannot tell; but I have never since seen an evergreen or a weeping-willow that did not take me back to that little spot. The footpaths¹² wound in and out, and ran off in all directions to reach each separate plat of ground that the thrifty¹³ neighbors had set apart as the final resting-place which would be theirs until the resurrection came. Most of them firmly believed in this great day,—or at least they told themselves they did. Around the yard was a neat white fence, always kept in good repair; and the gates were carefully locked except on the Sabbath day. Many times I saw the old sexton wait until the last mourner had slowly left the yard, and then carefully lock the gate and go away. It seemed to me as if he were locking the gate to keep his silent tenants in, like a jailer who turns the bolts upon the prisoners in their cells.

 

As a little child, I used to look at the sexton half in awe¹⁴, and I almost feared to 123come into his uncanny presence. I never could think that he was quite like other men, or else he could not shovel¹⁵ the dirt so carelessly into the open grave. I had never seen anyone but the old sexton fill the grave and smooth the little mound² that was always made from the dirt that was left over after the coffin¹⁶ was put down; and I used to wonder, in my childish way, how the sexton himself would get buried when he was dead.

 

The church and the graveyard were closely associated in my mind. It seemed to me, as a little child, that the church had full jurisdiction¹⁷ of the yard, and that the care and protection of the graves and their mouldering¹⁸ tenants were the chief reasons why the church was there. The great bell tolled¹⁹ slowly and mournfully at each death, and we counted the solemn strokes to know the age of the hapless one whose turn had come. Sometimes we could even guess who had died, from the number of times it struck; but even these strokes did not impress me much. Almost always the number was very great. I could not see any connection between these old people and myself; and, besides, I felt that if the time could 124ever come when I had grown so old, I would have lived far beyond an age when there was any joy in life. On the day of the funeral, too, the bell commenced to toll²⁰ when the hearse came into view from the church and began its slow journey up the hill, and it did not cease until the last carriage was inside the yard. The importance of the dead could always be told by the length of time the old bell rang while the procession crawled up the hill. We used to compare these processions, and dispute as to who had the longest funeral; but after old Squire²¹ Allen’s turn had come, there was no longer any doubt. As I grew older, and began to give rein²² to my ambitions and dreams, I hoped and rather believed that in the far-off years I might have a longer procession than the one that had followed him to the little yard, but of late years I have rather lost interest in this old ambition.

 

At almost every mound stood a white marble slab²³, and sometimes there was a grand and pretentious monument in the centre of the lot. When I was very young, I thought that those who had the finest monuments were the ones most loved and mourned. It was long before I 125realized that even the barred gates of a graveyard could not keep vanity outside. I often heard the neighbors talk about these stones. Sometimes they said it was strange that Farmer Smith could not show enough respect for his wife to put up a finer gravestone. Again, they said that it would have been better if Farmer Brown had been kinder to his wife while she lived, than to have put up such a grand monument after she was dead.

 

We boys sometimes went through the yard to pick out the slabs²⁴ we liked the best; these were always the tallest and the largest ones. We carefully read the inscriptions²⁵ on these stones, and never for a moment doubted a word they said, any more than we doubted Holy Writ²⁷. All the inscriptions told of the virtues²⁸ of the dead, and generally were helped out by a Scriptural text. In the case of children the stone was usually ornamented²⁹ with a lamb or a dove, which we thought wonderful and fine. Sometimes an angel in the form of a woman was coming down from the clouds to take a happy child away to heaven. I cannot recall that I saw any angels in the forms of men, though why all the angels were women I did not know then, nor, for that matter, do I know now.

 

I think the first time my faith was shaken in anything I saw on a gravestone was one day when I chanced upon a brand-new slab erected³⁰ to the memory of the town drunkard by his “loving wife and children.” The inscription²⁶ said that the deceased was a kind and loving husband and a most indulgent father. Everyone in Farmington knew that the wife had often called in the constable³¹ to protect her from the husband; but still here was the stone. Yet, after all, the inscription may not have been untrue; indeed, it may have been more truthful³² than those that rested above many a man and woman who had lived and died without reproach.

 

Even in the churchyard we boys knew which were the favored spots. We understood that the broad thoroughfares where carriages could drive were taken by the richest people of the town, and that the mounds away off at one side and reached only by narrow footpaths were for the poorer and humbler folk. I always hoped I might be buried where the teams could pass; it seemed as if I should be lonely away on the outskirts³³ where no one ever came along.

 

Even when quite young, I could not help noticing how many graves were at first planted with flowers and decked and kept with the greatest care, and how soon the rosebushes were broken and the weeds and grass grew rank and high upon the mound. Everyone thought this a shame; and I thought so too. But that is not so clear to me to-day as it was then. I have rather come to think it fortunate that Nature, through time and change, heals the sore wounds and dulls the cruel memories of the past.

 

When I had grown old enough to go to the Academy on the hill, we boys had a playground just at the edge of the graveyard. Sometimes the strongest hitter would knock the ball clear over to the newest mounds that were slowly encroaching on our domain³⁴. When it was my turn to chase the ball, I always got it as quickly as I could, and ran away, for even this momentary³⁵ intrusion of the dead into our games left an uneasy feeling in my mind.

 

The last time I was in Farmington I once more went inside the old graveyard; somehow it had a nearer and more personal meaning to me than it ever had before. In those far-off days the churchyard was only a casual thought that flitted now and then like a shadow through my mind,—never with much personal relation to myself, but more in connection with my father or mother, or with some old neighbor whom I knew and loved; but I find that more and more, as we grow older, the thought of churchyards becomes familiar to our lives and brings a personal meaning of which childhood cannot know.

 

Farmington itself, when I last saw it, had not much changed except to grow older and more deserted³⁶ than when I was young. Some of the shops and stores were vacant, and many of the people had gone to more prosperous towns; but the churchyard had grown larger with the passing years. The old part was well-nigh forgotten, but the new yard had stretched out until it quite covered the field where we used to chase the ball, and had then slowly crept off over a ravine farther back, and was climbing on up the hill. I wandered for a while around the winding³⁷ paths, and read again the inscriptions on the leaning stones; these had a meaning that I never felt before. When I read the ages of the dead, I found many a stone that told of fewer years than those that I could boast, and in the newer part I spelled out the names of some of those little white-haired boys that once skipped along the winding path with me without the slightest thought that they so soon would be sleeping with the rest.

1 hitched   

（免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上

参考例句：

• They hitched a ride in a truck. 他们搭乘了一辆路过的货车。
• We hitched a ride in a truck yesterday. 我们昨天顺便搭乘了一辆卡车。

2 mound   

n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫

参考例句：

• The explorers climbed a mound to survey the land around them.勘探者爬上土丘去勘测周围的土地。
• The mound can be used as our screen.这个土丘可做我们的掩蔽物。

3 mounds   

土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆

参考例句：

• We had mounds of tasteless rice. 我们有成堆成堆的淡而无味的米饭。
• Ah! and there's the cemetery' - cemetery, he must have meant. 'You see the mounds? 啊，这就是同墓，”——我想他要说的一定是公墓，“看到那些土墩了吗？

4 tenants   

n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者

参考例句：

• A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。

5 pretentious   

adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的

参考例句：

• He is a talented but pretentious writer.他是一个有才华但自命不凡的作家。
• Speaking well of yourself would only make you appear conceited and pretentious.自夸只会使你显得自负和虚伪。

6 shrubs   

灌木( shrub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
• These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。

7 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

8 graveyard   

n.坟场

参考例句：

• All the town was drifting toward the graveyard.全镇的人都象流水似地向那坟场涌过去。
• Living next to a graveyard would give me the creeps.居住在墓地旁边会使我毛骨悚然。

9 graveyards   

墓地( graveyard的名词复数 )； 垃圾场； 废物堆积处； 收容所

参考例句：

• He takes a macabre interest in graveyards. 他那么留意墓地，令人毛骨悚然。
• "And northward there lie, in five graveyards, Calm forever under dewy green grass," 五陵北原上，万古青蒙蒙。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 文学

10 evergreen   

n.常青树；adj.四季常青的

参考例句：

• Some trees are evergreen;they are called evergreen.有的树是常青的，被叫做常青树。
• There is a small evergreen shrub on the hillside.山腰上有一小块常绿灌木丛。

11 drooping   

adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词

参考例句：

• The drooping willows are waving gently in the morning breeze. 晨风中垂柳袅袅。
• The branches of the drooping willows were swaying lightly. 垂柳轻飘飘地摆动。

12 footpaths   

人行小径，人行道( footpath的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There are a lot of winding footpaths in the col. 山坳里尽是些曲曲弯弯的羊肠小道。
• There are many footpaths that wind through the village. 有许多小径穿过村子。

13 thrifty   

adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的

参考例句：

• Except for smoking and drinking,he is a thrifty man.除了抽烟、喝酒，他是个生活节俭的人。
• She was a thrifty woman and managed to put aside some money every month.她是个很会持家的妇女，每月都设法存些钱。

14 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

15 shovel   

n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出

参考例句：

• He was working with a pick and shovel.他在用镐和铲干活。
• He seized a shovel and set to.他拿起一把铲就干上了。

16 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

17 jurisdiction   

n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权

参考例句：

• It doesn't lie within my jurisdiction to set you free.我无权将你释放。
• Changzhou is under the jurisdiction of Jiangsu Province.常州隶属江苏省。

18 mouldering   

v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌

参考例句：

• The room smelt of disuse and mouldering books. 房间里有一股长期不用和霉烂书籍的味道。
• Every mouldering stone was a chronicle. 每块崩碎剥落的石头都是一部编年史。 来自辞典例句

19 tolled   

鸣钟（toll的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Bells were tolled all over the country at the King's death. 全国为国王之死而鸣钟。
• The church bell tolled the hour. 教堂的钟声报时。

20 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

21 squire   

n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅

参考例句：

• I told him the squire was the most liberal of men.我告诉他乡绅是世界上最宽宏大量的人。
• The squire was hard at work at Bristol.乡绅在布里斯托尔热衷于他的工作。

22 rein   

n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治

参考例句：

• The horse answered to the slightest pull on the rein.只要缰绳轻轻一拉,马就作出反应。
• He never drew rein for a moment till he reached the river.他一刻不停地一直跑到河边。

23 slab   

n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上

参考例句：

• This heavy slab of oak now stood between the bomb and Hitler.这时笨重的橡木厚板就横在炸弹和希特勒之间了。
• The monument consists of two vertical pillars supporting a horizontal slab.这座纪念碑由两根垂直的柱体构成，它们共同支撑着一块平板。

24 slabs   

n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片

参考例句：

• The patio was made of stone slabs. 这天井是用石板铺砌而成的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The slabs of standing stone point roughly toward the invisible notch. 这些矗立的石块，大致指向那个看不见的缺口。 来自辞典例句

25 inscriptions   

（作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记

参考例句：

• Centuries of wind and rain had worn away the inscriptions on the gravestones. 几个世纪的风雨已磨损了墓碑上的碑文。
• The inscriptions on the stone tablet have become blurred with the passage of time. 年代久了，石碑上的字迹已经模糊了。

26 inscription   

n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文

参考例句：

• The inscription has worn away and can no longer be read.铭文已磨损，无法辨认了。
• He chiselled an inscription on the marble.他在大理石上刻碑文。

27 writ   

n.命令状，书面命令

参考例句：

• This is a copy of a writ I received this morning.这是今早我收到的书面命令副本。
• You shouldn't treat the newspapers as if they were Holy Writ. 你不应该把报上说的话奉若神明。

28 virtues   

美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处

参考例句：

• Doctors often extol the virtues of eating less fat. 医生常常宣扬少吃脂肪的好处。
• She delivered a homily on the virtues of family life. 她进行了一场家庭生活美德方面的说教。

29 ornamented   

adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The desk was ornamented with many carvings. 这桌子装饰有很多雕刻物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She ornamented her dress with lace. 她用花边装饰衣服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

30 ERECTED   

adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立

参考例句：

• A monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral. 在圣保罗大教堂为他修了一座纪念碑。
• A monument was erected to the memory of that great scientist. 树立了一块纪念碑纪念那位伟大的科学家。

31 constable   

n.(英国)警察，警官

参考例句：

• The constable conducted the suspect to the police station.警官把嫌疑犯带到派出所。
• The constable kept his temper,and would not be provoked.那警察压制着自己的怒气，不肯冒起火来。

32 truthful   

adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的

参考例句：

• You can count on him for a truthful report of the accident.你放心，他会对事故作出如实的报告的。
• I don't think you are being entirely truthful.我认为你并没全讲真话。

33 outskirts   

n.郊外，郊区

参考例句：

• Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
• They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。

34 domain   

n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围

参考例句：

• This information should be in the public domain.这一消息应该为公众所知。
• This question comes into the domain of philosophy.这一问题属于哲学范畴。

35 momentary   

adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的

参考例句：

• We are in momentary expectation of the arrival of you.我们无时无刻不在盼望你的到来。
• I caught a momentary glimpse of them.我瞥了他们一眼。

36 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。

37 winding   

n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈

参考例句：

• A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
• The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。