out of the pit on a ladder. You could see a pool of water shining far
down at the bottom.

Mamma was smiling gently and kindly at the man and asking him why the
grave was dug so deep. He said, "Why, because this 'ere lot and that
there what you've come acrost is the pauper buryin' ground. We shovel 'em
in five at a time this end."

Roddy said, "Like they did in the great plague of London."

"I don't know about no plague. But there's five coffins in each of these
here graves, piled one atop of the other."

Mamma seemed inclined to say more to the grave-digger; but Aunt Lavvy
frowned and shook her head at her, and they went on to where a path of
coarse grass divided the pauper burying ground from the rest. They were
now quite horribly near the funeral. And going down the grass path they
saw another that came towards them; the palled coffin swaying on headless
shoulders. They turned from it into a furrow between the huddled mounds.
The white marble columns gleamed nearer among the black trees.

They crossed a smooth gravel walk into a crowded town of dead people.
Tombstones as far as you could see; upright stones, flat slabs, rounded
slabs, slabs like coffins, stone boxes with flat tops, broken columns;
pointed pillars. Rows of tall black trees. Here and there a single tree
sticking up stiffly among the tombstones. Very little trees that were
queer and terrifying. People in black moving about the tombstones. A
broad road and a grey chapel with pointed gables. Under a black tree a
square plot enclosed by iron railings.