33. MOLLY TRIED TO READ THE SCRIPTURE.

The clouds obscured the western sky,

Darkness circled round the grave yard

As Molly sadly breathed a sigh

O'er the grave of Honest Chaugham.

There was sorrow in the village,

When they laid him on the hill side

Southward where the soil is sandy,

In the grave yard in the forest.

Molly tried to read the Scriptures,

So the children have reported,

From an old and tattered Bible —

Last of all her childhood treasures,

Given by her loving mother,

But her voice was low and broken,

Hardly could they hear her speaking,

So they sat in gloomy silence

‘ Till the ev'ning shadows lengthened,

And they left him there in darkness

With a field-stone for a marker,

Seen to-day on Ragged Mountain

In the graveyard's dim enclosure

In the town of fair Barkhamsted.