o protect them while this work was in
progress. However, the caretaker did all that he could for us.

Pitifully few are the stones remaining to mark the graves of that
vanguard of English colonization. For most who lie here, the last
record has crumbled away. Proud knight, proud lady, gentlemen,
gentlewomen, and unknown humble folk, in common brotherhood at last,
"dust to dust" and unmarked level ground above them.

One of the most notable of the remaining tombs is that of Lady Frances
Berkeley, who rests beneath the shadow of the great hackberry tree that
is said to have been brought over, a slender sapling, from England. But
a few parts of words remain on the broken stone, and the date is gone.
Though after the death of her husband, Sir William Berkeley, this lady
became Mrs. Philip Ludwell, yet she clung to the greater name and
insisted that her long sleep should be under its carven pomp.

[Illustration. A CORNER IN THE OLD GRAVEYARD.]

Peeping into a shed that temporarily covered the old chancel floor, we
caught a glimpse of the mysterious tomb of the island. It is an
ironstone tablet, once doubtless inlaid with brass, as the channellings
for the metal are yet clearly defined. They show a draped figure and
some smaller designs that have been taken as indications of knighthood,
and have led to the conjecture that this is the tomb of Sir George
Yeardley, governor of the Colony of Virginia, who died here in 1627. It
is said to be the only tomb of the kind in America. Evidently, the
stone has become somewhat displaced; for instead of being orientated as
it must once have been, it now lies almost north and south.

We were not able to see the grave of William Sherwood, that humble but
hopeful wrong-doer who lies under the chiselled words, "A Great sinner
Waiting for a joyfull Resurrection."

The old graveyard, like the hoary tower, awes the mind and touches the
heart. And this partly because of its pitiful littleness. A handful of
cracked and broken stones to tell of all that terrible harvest that
Death reaped in the ruined village! But perhaps they tell it all as
hosts of tombs could not do. One reads between the stones, then far out
beyond them where mouldering bones are feeding the smiling fields; and
there is borne in upon him the thought that our country had life
through so much of death that this whole island is a graveyard.

After leaving the old tombs, we crossed a roadway and entered a ruined
fort. In thos