house I lived, for whom in those days hearts were still aching, and by
whose memory the house still seemed haunted. A few upright stones were
all that I recollect. But now, around them were the monuments of many of
the dead whom I remembered as living. I doubt if there has been a more
faithful reader of these graven stones than myself for many a long day.
I listened to more than one brief sermon from preachers whom I had
often heard as they thundered their doctrines down upon me from the
throne-like desk. Now they spoke humbly out of the dust, from a
narrower pulpit, from an older text than any they ever found in Cruden's
Concordance, but there was an eloquence in their voices the listening
chapel had never known. There were stately monuments and studied
inscriptions, but none so beautiful, none so touching, as that which
hallows the resting-place of one of the children of the very learned
Professor Robinson: "Is it well with the child? And she answered, It is
well."

While I was musing amidst these scenes in the mood of Hamlet, two old
men, as my little ghost called them, appeared on the scene to answer to
the gravedigger and his companion. They christened a mountain or two for
me, "Kearnsarge" among the rest, and revived some old recollections, of
which the most curious was "Basil's Cave." The story was recent, when
I was there, of one Basil, or Bezill, or Buzzell, or whatever his name
might have been, a member of the Academy, fabulously rich, Orientally
extravagant, and of more or less lawless habits. He had commanded a cave
to be secretly dug, and furnished it sumptuously, and there with
his companions indulged in revelries such as the daylight of that
consecrated locality had never looked upon. How much truth there was in
it all I will not pretend to say, but I seem to remember stamping over
every rock that sounded hollow, to question if it were not the roof of
what was once Basil's Cave.

The sun was getting far past the meridian, and I sought a shelter under
which to partake of the hermit fare I had brought with me. Following
the slope of the hill northward behind the cemetery, I found a pleasant
clump of trees grouped about some rocks, disposed so as to give a
seat, a table, and a shade. I left my benediction on this pretty little
natural caravansera, and a brief record on one of its white birches,
hoping to visit it again on some sweet summer or autumn day.

Two scenes remained to look upon,--the Shawshine R