Page 31 - Graveyard

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37. From America.

Both the Irish and Americans give us something to laugh at when they
handle epitaphian matters. The following is from a tombstone in Oxford,
New Hampshire:—

To all my friends I bid adieu;
A more sudden death you never knew;
As I was leading the old mare to drink,
She kick’d and kill’d me quicker ’n a wink.

In Whitby Churchyard there is an epitaph, the sentiment of which is very
similar to this. (See No. 194.)

38. From St. Peter’s Churchyard, Barton:—

Doom’d to receive half my soul held dear,
The other half with grief she left me here.
Ask not her name for she was true and just;
Once a fine woman, now a heap of dust.

No name is recorded on the stone, but the year 1777 is given as the date. A
curious and romantic legend attaches to the epitaph. In the above year an
unknown lady of great beauty, who was conjectured to have loved “not
wisely, but too well,” came to reside in the town. She was accompanied by
a gentleman, who left her after making lavish arrangements for her
comfort. She was proudly reserved in her manners, frequently took long
solitary walks, and studiously avoided all intercourse. She died in giving
birth to a child, and without disclosing her name or family connexions.
After her decease, the gentle-man who came with her arrived, and was
overwhelmed with grief at the intelligence which awaited him. He took the
child away without unravelling the secret, having first ordered the stone to
be erected, and delivered into the mason’s hands the verse, which is at
once a mystery and a memento.