though he was a droll devil, and could sing a funny song when he was among
the boys, no sooner had he the big black cloak on him and the weepers, and
he seated on the high box with the six long-tailed blacks before him, you'd
really think it was his own mother was inside, he looked so melancholy and
miserable. The sexton and gravedigger was nothing to my father; and he had
a look about his eye--to be sure there was a reason for it--that you'd
think he was up all night crying; though it's little indulgence he took
that way.

"Well, of all Mr. Callaghan's men, there was none so great a favorite as my
father. The neighbors were all fond of him.

"'A kind crayture, every inch of him!' the women would say. 'Did ye see his
face at Mrs. Delany's funeral?'

"'True for you,' another would remark; 'he mistook the road with grief, and
stopped at a shebeen house instead of Kilmurry church.'

"I need say no more, only one thing,--that it was principally among the
farmers and the country people my father was liked so much. The great
people and the quality--ax your pardon; but sure isn't it true, Mister
Charles?--they don't fret so much after their fathers and brothers, and
they care little who's driving them, whether it was a decent, respectable
man like my father, or a chap with a grin on him like a rat-trap. And so
it happened that my father used to travel half the county; going here and
there wherever there was trade stirring; and faix, a man didn't think
himself rightly buried if my father wasn't there; for ye see, he knew all
about it: he could tell to a quart of spirits what would be wanting for a
wake; he knew all the good criers for miles round; and I've heard it was a
beautiful sight to see him standing on a hill, arranging the procession as