To those who remonstrated he had said that he was not ashamed of his
body and that God was worshipped the better for there being no clothing
to keep the wind away ... all mad enough, and there were never many
parishioners in the little hill church of a Sunday. However, it was in the
little windy churchyard that Mrs. Westcott was buried and it was up the
steep and stony road to the little church that the hearse and its nodding
plumes, followed by the two old and decrepit hackney carriages, slowly
climbed.
Peter's impressions of the day were vague and uncertain. There were things
that always remained in his memory but strangely his general conviction was
that his mother had had nothing to do with it. The black coffin conveyed
nothing to him of her presence: he saw her as he had seen her on that day
when he had talked to her, and now she was, as Stephen was, somewhere away.
That was his impression, that she had escaped....
Putting on his black clothes in the morning brought Dawson's back to his
mind, and especially Bobby Galleon and Cards. He had not thought of them
since the day of his return--first Stephen and then his mother had driven
them from his mind. But now, with the old school black clothing upon him,
he stood for a long time by his window, wondering, sorrowfully enough,
where they were and what they were doing, whether they had forgotten him,
whether he would ever see them again.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165