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One afternoon, when the good lady and the sculptor were in the very midst of the epitaph, which the departed spirit might have been greatly comforted to read, who should walk into the workshop but the deceased himself, in substance as well as spirit! He had been picked up at sea, and stood in no present need of tombstone or epitaph.
Her prototype was one Helen Walker, the daughter of a small Dumfriesshire farmer, who in order to get the Duke of Argyle to intercede to save her sister's life got up a petition and actually walked to London barefoot to present it to his grace. Helen Walker died in 1791, and on the tombstone of this unassuming heroine is an inscription by Scott himself. I. In the Tolbooth
You may lay it down as one of the ten commandments, that any secret you may plaise to trust me with, will be undher a tombstone. I'm not the stuff that a traitor or villain is made of. So, once for fill, your honor, make your mind aisy on that point." "It will be your own interest to prove faithful," said his master. "Here is a month's wages for you in advance."
His imagination had also seen his own tombstone in some Christian churchyard near to the church porch, where he would not be lonely when he was dead, but could hear the gossip of the people as they went in and out of church; and on the tombstone some such inscription as he had seen once at Pforzheim "To the high-born Lord Johann, Earl of Little Egypt, to whose soul God be gracious and merciful."
At Philips-Norton I walked to the church, and there saw a very ancient tomb of some Knight Templar, I think; and here saw the tombstone whereon there were only two heads cut, which the story goes, and creditably, were two sisters, called the Fair Maids of Foscott, that had two bodies upward and one belly, and there lie buried. Here is also a very fine ring of six bells, and they mighty tuneable.
"For some time there was a sort of rude tombstone, with a cross on it, to mark the spot where his body was interred, but this has long fallen, and a milestone now fills its place.
It caught for an instant on the weather side of a tombstone, but just as he was about to pick it up, a fresh gust sent it sailing over the obstacle. It was dashed against the side of the old church and then carried around the end of the building and out of sight.
In spite of that conviction, the writer of stories in parts will often be tedious. That I have been so myself is a fault that will lie heavy on my tombstone. But the writer when he embarks in such a business should feel that he cannot afford to have many pages skipped out of the few which are to meet the reader's eye at the same time.
I am but a poor woman, but even if I have to scrimp to do it, I will put up a tombstone over that lone sufferer's grave and Mr. Riley if you would have the goodness to think up a little epitaph to put on it which would sort of describe the awful way in which she met her " "Put it, 'Well done, good and faithful servant," said Riley, and never smiled.
He and his tribe know that I'll starve in my tracks sooner than make a concession a single concession. A fellow came after me once to do an angel on a tombstone an angel leaning against a broken column, and looking as if it was waiting for the elevator and wondering why in hell it didn't come. He said he wanted me to show that the deceased was pining to get to heaven.
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