y plan, he sat down at
the edge of the gully, buried his face in his clumsy hands and wept
silently, shuddering at every bough I lifted. Greatly interested now,
I called Roger, and we worked together, assisted by the good-natured
Italian retained now as gardener and assistant boatman (his name was
Rafaello, and he was a not-too-unhappy bachelor, for, as he said, a
girl who would run off with a man's rival a week before the wedding
would have made but a doubtful wife for the most patient of husbands!)

As we neared the bottom of the gully Caliban grew more and more
excited: now he would peer in fearfully, now run off a few yards, but
he could never get very far away, for great as was his terror and
sorrow, curiosity was stronger and he must be near, it seemed, at all
costs.

[Illustration: AH, FAITHFUL CALIBAN, WHAT HOURS OF TERRIBLE TUITION
MADE THY TASK CLEAR TO THEE!]

Suddenly, as the last rotting bough was lifted from one end of the
gully, my eye was caught by a series of stones wonderfully matched in
size, eight or ten of them arranged in a sort of rough cross, and when
with a quick thrill of apprehension I pushed aside the withered pine
tree that covered the rest of the stones, the foot of the cross
elongated, and the symbol of Calvary was seen to extend over a
slightly raised oblong mound of earth. There was no mistaking that
shape nor those dimensions; whoever has heard the rattle of that last
remorseless handful and struggled with that almost nauseating
rebellion at the sight of the raw clods, so unsightly in the smooth,
peaceful green, knows that mound for what it is, and we knew this.
Silently we cleared away the rest, and then the grave I had discerned
fell into its true and illuminating relation to two other and
evidently older crosses--at the feet of both and at right angles to
them. In her death as in her life that gaunt, austere Hester was
faithful, and like the stone hound at the ancient knight's bier she
guarded her master's last sleep.

We took off our caps reverently; we needed no monument, no epitaph to
name for us those exiled, unblessed graves. Prynne had made the first
cross, we knew, twenty-seven years ago; Hester had made the second a
few days before Roger visited the island. And the third? Ah, faithful
Caliban, what hours of terrible tuition made thy task clear to thee? I
shudder at the picture of that indefatigable New England woman
illustrating in terrible pantomime the duties that woul