Free Anne of Windy Willows by Lucy Maud Montgomery

mouse had gone. I pulled my skirts tight about my ankles and held them there till church was out; but it spoiled the sermon for me. Herb sat behind me, and such a shout as he gave! People who couldn’t see the mouse thought he’d gone crazy. It seemed to me that laugh of his
couldn’t
die. If
he
was alive he’d stand up for you, Sarah or no Sarah…
This
, of course, is Captain Abraham Pringle’s monument.
    It dominated the whole graveyard. Four receding platforms of stone formed a square pedestal, on which rose a huge pillar of marble topped with a ridiculous draped urn, beneath which a fat cherub was blowing a horn.
    ‘How ugly!’ said Anne candidly.
    ‘Oh, do you think so?’ Miss Valentine seemed rather shocked. ‘It was thought very handsome when it was erected. That is supposed to be Gabriel blowing his trumpet. I think it gives quite a touch of elegance to the graveyard. It cost nine hundred dollars. Captain Abraham was a very fine old man. It is a great pity he is dead. If he was living they wouldn’t be persecuting you the way they are. I don’t wonder Sarah and Ellen are proud of him, though I think they carry it a bit too far.’
    At the graveyard gate Anne turned and looked back. A strange, peaceful hush lay over the windless land. Long fingers of moonlight were beginning to pierce the darkling firs, touching a gravestone here and there, and making strange shadows among them. But the graveyard wasn’t a sad place after all. Really, the people in it seemed alive after Miss Valentine’s tales.
    ‘I’ve heard you write,’ said Miss Valentine anxiously, as they went down the lane. ‘You won’t put the things I’ve told you in your stories, will you?’
    ‘You may be sure I won’t,’ promised Anne.
    ‘Do you think it is really wrong – or dangerous – to speak ill of the dead?’ whispered Miss Valentine a bit anxiously.
    ‘I don’t suppose it’s exactly either,’ said Anne. ‘Only rather unfair – like hitting those who can’t defend themselves. But you didn’t say anything very dreadful of anybody, Miss Courtaloe.’
    ‘I told you Nathan Pringle thought his wife was trying to poison him.’
    ‘But you gave her the benefit of the doubt.’ And Miss Valentine went her way reassured.
    6
    ‘I wended my way to the graveyard this evening,’ wrote Anne to Gilbert, after she got home. ‘I think “wend your way” is a lovely phrase, and I work it in whenever I can. It sounds funny to say I enjoyed my stroll in the graveyard, but I really did. Miss Courtaloe’s stories were so funny, though some of them were gruesome enough underneath. Comedy and tragedy are so mixed up in life, Gilbert. The only thing that haunts me is that tale of the two who lived together fifty years and hated each other all that time. I can’t believe they really did. Somebody has said that “Hate is only love that has missed its way”. I feel sure that under the hatred they really loved each other – just as I really loved you all those years I thought I hated you – and I think death would show it to them. I’m glad
I
found out in life. And I have found out there
are
some decent Pringles – dead ones.
    ‘Last night when I went down late for a drink I found Aunt Kate buttermilking her face in the pantry. She asked me not to tell Chatty; she would think it so silly. I promised I wouldn’t.
    ‘Elizabeth still comes for the milk, though the Woman is pretty well over her bronchitis. I wonder they let her, especially since old Mrs Campbell is a Pringle. Last Saturday night Elizabeth – she was Betty that night, I think – ran in singing when she left me, and I distinctly heard the Woman say to her at the porch door, “It’s too near the Sabbath for you to be singing
that
song.” I am sure that Woman would prevent Elizabeth from singing on any day if she could!
    ‘Elizabeth had on a new dress that night, a dark wine colour – they
do
dress her nicely – and she said wistfully, “I thought I looked a