Across this flat lyeth British Soldiers...

I walk to work through a graveyard most days. I suppose in some towns that would be unusual, but in Fredericton the Old Burial Ground, final resting place to dozens of British Soldiers and the Loyalists they protected, is more quiet city park than cemetary. Those who buried the bodies in this yard did so so long ago that there have been no living mourners left for generations; these are ancestors, not relatives.


Every day this fall I've been watching the progress of this great maple tree right in the middle of the Burial Ground; from a dark green all summer it's now completely aflame with orange and indeed has begun shedding its new auburn 'do.


There's a cross beside the path that runs through the Old Burial Ground (at each end of this path gates open onto busy downtown streets, hence its use as a shortcut). It is dedicated to the memory of the British Soldiers who died in Fredericton and were buried in this cemetery after the American Revolution.

Carved into its base are the words, "To the Memory of the Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and men of the Regiments and Corps of the British Army who served in the Fredericton Garrison between 1784 and 1869"

Then, in smaller text: "Across this flat lyeth British Soldiers who died in Fredericton".

That second epitaph, simple and homely, is there for a reason. This memorial is new, but it stands side by side with the original memorial cairn which was erected by the British Army to mark where their men lay. The marble plate in the face of the original cairn - just a pyramid of stones - is cracked by weather now, but the words that mark it can still be clearly read: "Across this flat lyeth British Soldiers who died in Fredericton". Nothing grander than that.

I've looked at that cairn many mornings as I walk to work and I always think the same thing: What a long way from home to die. What must some of them thought of it, I wonder - dying so very far away from home. I guess it's a question soldiers have ever asked themselves, and are asking themselves still.

The leaves have pretty fully turned now and we went for a drive on Sunday to enjoy them. This is one of the country backroads we ambled down, on Keswick Ridge, on the way to Mactaquac.

It was a beautiful day and in the low 20s, so one more opportunity to open the sunroof and enjoy the sunshine while nature threw everything she had at us.






A glimpse of the Saint John River from high atop Keswick Ridge.












Then, this morning, back to strolling to work among Georgian ghosts under the autumn sunshine.

ronnie