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He was brought by the docent to a headstone jutting up from the ground at an angle, tilted to one side.  The edges were well worn and, while there were lichens obscuring the text engraved into the 288-year-old stone, the markings clearly indicated that this was the site where, a few feet below ground, the bones of his ancestor could be found.  

The night before he had wandered around the cemetery for nearly an hour, silently beseeching his ancestor to reveal himself.  

His entreaties fell upon long-dead ears.  

The irony in the plight of the Huguenot ghosts lying there in stony silence was no longer lost upon him.  They had fled pogroms and persecution only to become the instruments by which the Esopus became extinct, their voices dispatched to the deepest, darkest recesses of the memories of their tormentors.  

Yet, unlike the ghosts still haunting the cemetery, the song of the Esopus still echoed among the sounds of the earth that could be so clearly heard above the silent din of their would-be conquerors.

He turned his back on their graves and took his leave, unaware of the psalm they would have preferred him to recite, the one that came just after the old familiar one that had been sung over their dead bodies:

The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it,

The world, and its inhabitants, too.

Because God is the one who founded it upon the seas,

God set it firmly on the waters.

Who shall ascend the LORD’s mountain?

Who shall stand in his holy sanctuary?

Only those with clean hands – who are pure of heart.  

Only those who have not made false promises.

Only those who have not sworn dishonestly.

That kind of person receives blessings from the LORD,

And righteousness from the God who saves.

That is how things are

With those generations that seek Him –

Those that seek the face

Of the God of Abraham