Great Britain -- History -- Charles I, 1625-1649 -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
The bodies of the lovers were laid in one grave in the peaceful
hillside churchyard, where nought but a blackened ruin remained of
the sacred building they had loved, and close beside them, and at the
foot of the grass-grown graves of his daughter and her noble husband,
faithful Jack the boatman was by his own wish laid. And the
venerable hands of their friend, good Master Rhys, who lived to a
great old age among his books in his quiet home in the valley,
brought flowers day by day to the grassy mounds he loved, and Master
Jeremy Taylor rarely failed at eventide to steal away from his
school-house at Craig Arthur and spend an hour in prayer and
meditation in that quiet spot where lay the earthly remains of his
dearest friend. And often the childish feet of the little Elidore of
Caer Caradoc were wont to follow upon his master's track, unseen,
till a sudden outburst of childlike grief, interrupting the holy
man's musings, revealed the presence of the Lady Shanno's infant
champion, who loved to help his master in tending her grave and that
of her lover, and in planting them with choicest flowers from the
treasure-houses of Craig Arthur, and who through all his boyish days
clung to the memory of his "faire ladye" with all the chivalry of a
true knight of olden time.
By the order of Master Rhys and Master Jeremy Taylor a cross of white
marble was placed at the head of the lovers' grave, inscribed with
the text, "They, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long
time," and beneath it the Psalmist's words; "Gather my saints
together unto Me, those that have made a covenant with Me with
sacrifice."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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