I think it was a dream of very childish days that started my haunting dread of graveyards; that, and the peculiar desolation of the little burial-place through which we passed every Sunday morning to go to the Chapel near our country home. It was what is called in Ireland a “station,” that is a Chapel of Ease, which was only attended on Sundays and shut up on week-days. Deprived of the flicker of the Sanctuary lamp, the place seemed, except for that brief Sunday service, as deserted within as it was forlorn without.
GREEN GRAVES
I dreamt that all those poor neglected green graves—there was hardly one with even a black painted cross to mark it—had become endued with ghastly life and started in pursuit of me down the familiar country road. In a frightful, stealthy silence they wallowed and leaped, gaining on me as I ran, in my dream, in a panic that I can hardly even now bear to think back on.
For years afterwards I never walked away from that little churchyard, even in the large and cheerful company of my sisters, clutching the solid hand of governess or nurse, without the nightmare terror coming on me again. Not a word did I breathe of it, of course; but I would look back over my shoulder, at every turn of the road, horribly expecting to see those uncanny green hounds on the trace of my miserable little heels.
It was only in my walks I feared, however. When driving backwards and forwards to Mass I felt I could defy the graves. We always drove to the Sunday Mass. How vivid are the impressions of those early days! As I write I have before me the whole scene. Just before the cracked bell ceased ringing, we would file up the little front aisle and enter the pew reserved for us; my mother very solemn, with what we called her church face; our two governesses and we children. In summer each of the four little girls wore a new starched, very full-skirted print frock; and the one little boy of the party a white duck suit equally stiff from the wash. Our wooden pew ran on the right side of the Sanctuary rails and was shut off by a little door from the rest of the chapel. It had long bright red rep cushions, and the wood-work was painted a peculiarly pale yellow, handsomely and wormily grained! Just opposite to us, the better class farmers’ families were installed; and every new fashion that appeared in our bench was promptly copied by the bouncing Miss Condrens and Miss Mahons opposite.
There was, I recollect, one personage who inspired me with great admiration. She was a Mrs. Condren and her Christian name was Eliza. The daughter of what is called a “warm farmer,” she had been forbidden all thoughts of matrimony by him, who held the holy estate in as much disfavour as did Mrs. Browning’s father.
Well on in years, and presumably bored by her maiden state, she had at length eloped with an elderly admirer; and though she had “done very well for herself” and her spouse was quite as “warm” as her papa, the latter maintained towards them both an undying resentment. No wonder Mrs. Condren moved in a halo of romance in our eyes. Added to this she was always very handsomely attired in a shining purple silk, which filled the chapel with its rustle. She also sported a yellow bonnet with bunches of wax grapes and—last touch of elegance—dependent from its brim, a lace veil embroidered also with grapes, a cluster of which completely covered one eye and part of her cheek.
Quite another type was old Judy in her little brown shawl and lilac sun-bonnet, who knelt ostentatiously just in front of the altar rails, apart from the rest of the congregation; and who punctuated the service and sermon with loud clacks of her tongue, groans from and thumps upon her attenuated chest. My mother was once highly amused by Judy’s pantomime during a particular discourse.