"
The scene was worthy of an artist's pencil. Under the very arch of the
house of death, the clergyman, affrighted at the scene, and trembling
for his own safety, hastily and unwillingly rehearsed the solemn service
of the church, and spoke "dust to dust and ashes to ashes," over
ruined pride and decayed prosperity. Around stood the relations of the
deceased, their countenances more in anger than in sorrow, and the drawn
swords which they brandished forming a violent contrast with their deep
mourning habits. In the countenance of the young man alone, resentment
seemed for the moment overpowered by the deep agony with which he beheld
his nearest, and almost his only, friend consigned to the tomb of his
ancestry. A relative observed him turn deadly pale, when, all rites
being now duly observed, it became the duty of the chief mourner to
lower down into the charnel vault, where mouldering coffins showed their
tattered velvet and decayed plating, the head of the corpse which was
to be their partner in corruption. He stept to the youth and offered his
assistance, which, by a mute motion, Edgar Ravenswood rejected.
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