The storm had abated at noon, and the snow no longer fell, but there
had been no sunshine through all the gloomy day, and the clouds were
now mustering thickly again to battle, while the rising gale in the
pine-tops was hoarse and wrathful. Far as the eye could reach were
untrodden fields of snow; gently-rolling hills, studded with shrubs
and tinged in patches by russet bristles of broom-straw; the river
swollen into blackness between the white banks, and the dark horizon
of forest seeming to uphold the gray firmament. To the right of the
spectator, who stood on the eminence occupied by the cemetery, lay
Ridgeley, with its environing outhouses, crowning the most ambitious
height of the chain, the smoke from its chimneys and those of the
village of cabins beating laboriously upward, to be borne down at
last by the lowering mass of chilled vapor.

The coffin was deposited in its place with scant show of reverence,
and without removing their hats, the bystanders leaned on their
spades, and looked to the preacher for the ceremony that was to
authorize them to hurry through with their distasteful task. That
the gloom of the hour and scene, and the utter forlornness of all
the accompaniments of what was meant for Christian burial, had
stamped themselves upon the mind and heart of the unlettered slave,
was evident from the brief sentences he quavered out--joining his
withered hands and raising his bleared eyes toward the threatening
heavens:

"Lord! what is man, that thou art mindful of him! For that which
befalleth man befalleth beasts--even one thing befalleth them. All
go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of
the beast that goeth downward to the earth? Man cometh in with