There was a double layer of bodies beneath,
lying side by side; no margin could of course be given at the surface;
the thickly planted crosses, therefore, looked, at a little distance,
like a great waste of heath or bramble, broken now and then by a dwarf
cedar, and hung to the full with flowers and tokens. The width of the
trenches was that of the added height of two full-grown men, and the
length a half mile perhaps; a narrow passage-way separated them, so
that, however undistinguishable they appeared, each grave could be
indentified and visited.
Close observation might have found much to cheer this waste of flesh,
this economy of space; but to this little approaching company the scene
was of a kind to make death more terrible by association.
A rough wall enclosed the flat expanse of charnel, over which the
scattered houses of the barriers looked widowed through their mournful
windows; and now and then a crippled crone, or a bereaved old pauper,
hobbled to the roadway and shook her white hairs to the rain.
It seemed a long way over the boggy soil to the newly opened trench,
where the hearse stopped with its wheels half-sunken, and the chief
_croquemort_, without any ado, threw the coffin over his shoulder and
walked to the place of sepulture.
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