" My soul revolted against this mockery. "But why
should I pity my mother? She wished to lie beside her husband. And far
be it from me to criticise such a desire!"
The coffin was lifted upon the hearse. A gardener of old time came up
to ask me if I wished there to be any crying. I did not at first
understand what he meant; he began to explain, and I began to
understand that he meant the cries with which the Western peasant
follows his dead to the grave. Horrible savagery! and I ordered that
there was to be no keening; but three or four women, unable to contain
themselves, rushed forward and began a keen. It was difficult to try
to stop them. I fancy that every one looked round to see if there were
any clouds in the sky, for it was about a mile and a half to the
chapel; we would have to walk three miles at least, and if it rained,
we should probably catch heavy colds. We thought of the damp of the
wood, and the drip from the melancholy boughs of yew and fir growing
about that sepulchre on the hillside. But there was no danger of rain;
Castle Island lay in the misted water, faint and grey, reminding me of
what a splendid burial I might have if the law did not intervene to
prevent me. And as we followed the straggling grey Irish road, with
scant meagre fields on either side--fields that seemed to be on the
point of drifting into marsh land--past the houses of the poor people,
I tried to devise a scheme for the safeguarding of the vase.
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