Here Lie The Earthly Remains Of
MAYNARD KAIN, SECOND
Born 1835—­Died 1862 For the Preservation of the Union

His gaze went on to another of those worn stones.

MAYNARD KAIN, ESQUIRE
1819-1849

This Monument Erected in His Memory By His Sorrowing
Widow, Harriet Burnam Kain

The windy Gales of the West Indias
Laid claim to His Noble Soul
And Took him on High to his Creator
Who made him Whole.

There was no moss or lichen on this wind-scoured slope.  In the falling dusk the old white stones stood up like the bones of the dead themselves, and the only sound was the rustle of the wire-grass creeping over them in a dry tide.  The boy had taken off his cap; the sea-wind moving under the mat of his damp hair gave it the look of some somber, outlandish cowl.  With the night coming on, his solemnity had an elfin quality.  He found what he was looking for at last, and his fingers had to help his eyes.

DANIEL KAIN

Beloved Husband of Agnes Willoughby Kain

Born 1860—­Died 1886

Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Christopher Kain told me that he left the naked graveyard repeating it to himself, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” conscious less of the words than of the august rhythm falling in with the pulse of his exaltation.

The velvet darkness that hangs under cloud had come down over the hill and the great marsh stretching away to the south of it.  Agnes Kain stood in the open doorway, one hand on the brown wood, the other pressed to her cheek.

“You heard it that time, Nelson?”

“No, ma’am.”  The old man in the entrance-hall behind her shook his head.  In the thin, blown light of the candelabra which he held high, the worry and doubt of her deepened on his singularly-unlined face.

“And you might well catch your death in that draft, ma’am.”

But she only continued to stare out between the pillars where the lilac-hedge made a wall of deeper blackness across the night.

“What am I thinking of?” she whispered, and then:  "There!"

And this time the old man heard it, a nearer, wind-blown hail.

“Mother!  Oh, Mother!”

The boy came striding through the gap of the gate in the hedge.

“It’s I, Mother!  Chris!  Aren’t you surprised?”

She had no answer.  As he came she turned and moved away from the door, and the old man, peering from under the flat candle flames, saw her face like wax.  And he saw the boy, Christopher, in the doorway, his hands flung out, his face transfigured.

“Mother!  I’m here!  Don’t you understand?”

He touched her shoulder.  She turned to him, as it were, lazily.

“Yes,” she breathed.  “I see.”

He threw his arms about her, and felt her shaking from head to foot.  But he was shaking, too.