Another is a pilgrim that perished in as clear a night as ever shone on
St. Bernard, and merely for having taking a cup too much to cheer his way.
The third is a poor vine-dresser that was coming from Piedmont into our
Swiss valleys to follow his calling, when death overtook him in an
ill-advised slumber, in which he was so unwise as to indulge at nightfall.
I found his body myself on that naked rock, the day after we had drunk
together in friendship at Aoste, and with my own hands was he placed among
the others."
"And such is the burial a Christian gets in this inhospitable country!"
"What would you, lady!--'tis the chance of the poor and the unknown. Those
that have friends are sought and found; but those that die without leaving
traces of their origin fare as you see. The spade is useless among these
rocks; and then it is better that the body should remain where it may be
seen and claimed, than it should be put out of sight. The good fathers,
and all of note, are taken down into the valleys, where there is earth and
are decently buried; while the poor and the stranger are housed in this
vault, which is a better cover than many of them knew while living.
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