Page:Account of the dreadful accident and great loss of lives which occurred at Kirkcaldy, on Sunday the 15th June, 1828.pdf/7

7 When the tumult had in some measure subsided, and the bodies of the dead and dying had been brought out and laid upon the greensward of the graves at the north-west angle of the church, a scene of a more mournful, and still more withering description ensued. Such a number of human beings, some in the first blush of life, the greater proportion in the prime and vigour of their years, hurried in one moment of wild strife and agony into eternity, was of itself sufficient to shake the firmest nerves, and to appal the stoutest heart. But there were many accessory circumstances calculated, if possible, to make a still deeper impression, and to strain the chords of feeling to the very highest pitch. There, at that moment of unspeakable horror, might be seen parents suddenly bereft of children, children deprived of their parents, brothers bending over the dead bodies of their sisters, and sisters over those of their brothers, the lonely widow gazing in speechless agony at the inanimate frames of those she best loved, and who formed her sole comfort and stay, with crowds of relatives, and persons of all classes, either bewailing a loss, or awaiting in dreadful suspense the announcement of some bereavement; while the anxious and too often unavailing efforts of the surgeons, surrounded as they were with every form and manifestation of grief in all its bitterness, and with the dissonant but heart-rending cries of parental, filial, or fraternal lamentation, formed altogether a picture of deep and real tragedy such as it is more easy to