And he passed out of the churchyard, closing the heavy gate with a
metallic clang. Nicholas lay on the marble slab, but the book slipped
from his hands, and he gazed straight before him at the oriel window,
where the ivy was tremulous with the shining bodies and clamorous voices
of nesting sparrows. They darted swiftly from gable to gable, filling
the air with shrill sounds of discord, and endowing with animation the
inanimate pile, wrapping the dead bricks in a living shroud.

On the other side swept the long, colourless grasses, rippling in faint
waves like a still lake that reflects the sunshine and swaying lightly
beneath myriads of gauzy-winged bees that flashed with a droning noise
from blade to blade, to find rest in the yellow hearts of the damask
roses. Across the white vaults and the low-lying marble slabs
innumerable shadows chased, and from above the gnarled old locust trees
swept a fringe of vivid green, the slender blossoms hanging in tassels
from the branches' ends, and filling the air with a soft and ceaseless
rain of fragrant petals. Pale as the ghosts of dead leaves, they fell
always, fluttering night and day from the twisted boughs, settling in
creamy flakes upon the bending grasses, and outlining in delicate
tracery the epitaphs upon the discoloured marbles.

Nicholas lay with wide-open eyes, looking up at the oriel window where
the sparrows twittered. On a near vault a catbird poised for an instant,
surveying him with bright, distrustful eyes. Then, with an impetuous
flutter of slate-gray wings, it fled to the poisonous oak on the far
brick wall. A red-and-white cow, passing along the lane outside, stopped
before the closed gate, and stood philosophically chewing the cud as she
looked within through impeding bars. From the judge's garden came the
faint sound of a negro voice as the old gardener weeded the vegetables.