The day advanced, and as neither the gentleman, nor any one to show
cause for his absence, appeared, strange whisperings and surmises arose
amongst the crowd, which had assembled from all the villages on the
island, as to the probable motive of this most ill-advised delay. More
than one messenger was despatched to the top of Minster Church to look
out and see if any person like Sir Willmott was crossing the King's
Ferry, the only outlet in general use from the island to the main land:
but though the passage-boat, conducted (as it was termed) by Jabez
Tippet, was evidently employed as much as usual, there was no token to
justify farther waiting. The Rev. Jonas Fleetword, one of the soundest
of Puritan divines, stood like a statue of cast iron in the doorway, his
arms folded on his breast, and his brow contracting into a narrow and
fretted arch, as the minute-hand moved round and round the dial of the
old clock. At length assuming to himself the command, which in those
times was as willingly ceded to the Reformed minister as it had formerly
been to the not more arbitrary Catholic priest, he ordered the
procession "to tarry no longer the coming of him whose feet were shod
with heaviness, but to depart forthwith in the name of the Lord."
The place of interment was at East Church, a distance of about four
miles from Cecil Place; and as they paced it but slowly, the increasing
chill of the gathering clouds gave intimation that the prime of day was
sinking into the eventide before the spire was in sight. As they at
length ascended the hill, upon the summit of which was the vault of the
Cecils, a young gentleman, mounted on a grey and noble charger, met the
funeral train so suddenly, that those who preceded halted, and for a
moment it was rumoured, that Sir Willmott Burrell, though late and last,
had taken the lower road from King's Ferry, and so arrived in time to
behold the remains of her who was to have been his mother, deposited in
the tomb.
When the people observed, however, that the salutation of respect made
by the youth to the Rev. Jonas Fleetword was followed by no sign of
recognition, they moved silently onward, marvelling amongst themselves
at the young gentleman's keeping a little in advance of the clergyman,
so as to take the exact station which belonged to the chief mourner. He
was habited in a suit of the deepest black; and though the cloak which
fell in ample folds from his throat concealed his figure, yet his
movements indicated that it was slight and graceful. His broad hat
completely shaded his face, but the luxuriant curls of light air, which,
moistened by the misty atmosphere, fell negligently beneath its brim,
intimated that he was more akin to the Cavalier than the Roundhead.