Taking it all in all, he had behaved handsomely to Katty Foley, and the burying, which was of the best—a hearse and plumes, a beautiful coffin, and two coaches—was at his expense.
There was a good deal of whispering and nudging when the ceremony had concluded. Mary threw back the long veil, looked about her, and exhibited to the hundreds of watching eyes, a tear-stained and utterly miserable countenance.
In spite of her father’s overawing presence, she was immediately encompassed by a crowd of friends. They swarmed round her, shook her by the hand, looked hard into her eyes to see if they were proud? No; only very sad, and wet with tears. More fluent than sympathy and regret for Katty, came warm expressions of amazement, and congratulation; but these were somewhat jarring, and found no echo in Mary’s heart. Tom Kelly looked sheepish, and hung back. To think of his having made up to a lady born! When he glanced at his lordship he felt half inclined to run and hide behind one of the tombstones. Old Betty the Brag was present; she was getting on for eighty, but still wonderfully active. “Oh, me own little darlin’ fair creature,” she screeched, in her shrill old voice, “and hadn’t she the great nerve to steal ye, and keep ye out of your own?”
Mike Mahon, the author and originator of the great discovery, remained aloof, gazing with melancholy pride upon her mother’s daughter.
At last the earl, who had been surprisingly long-suffering, made a move to depart, and the crowd wrung Mary by the hand, with every description of English and Irish benediction. Hitherto she had been their own, and now she was leaving them—leaving them in tears. All the same, no bride in the country had ever received such a grand “send off” from her home, as did Mary Foley from the old Clonlara churchyard. The crowd streamed down en masse to the gate and lined the road three deep. “The place was black with them,” as a man subsequently described it; “and such a commotion over a young girl was never, never seen.” There was no thought of the poor corpse who had just been laid to rest. Every interest was centred on the young woman who was about to enter another state of life.
All her friends and acquaintances realised that Mary had taken leave of her former station, when she drove away in the pair-horse brougham, now rapidly passing out of sight.
The occasion was unprecedented. The crowd felt inclined to shout and to cheer, but a glance at the hearse, and the near sound of falling earth, restrained their enthusiasm. Presently, they scattered each to their place, or their own little shebeen, there to marvel, to discourse, and to prophesy, concerning Mary Foley’s future.