"But ye can't be chief mourner if ye're no relation," said Jane.
"Ye can just. I walked close behind the hearse of every one of them," he said. "When I see the feeneral comin' up the road I take off my hat, an' they make room for me to walk with the best."
He bound Jane over by a promise not to tell. In return for her promise he showed her where he kept Mick's coat and hat—wrapped up in a newspaper, and covered with sods, under an old bell-glass at the top of the garden—and promised, on his part, he would tell her what the people died of whose funerals he attended in the future.
But, as it happened, that was the last one he went to. When they got home they found the secret was out. Mick met them. He knew all about it, he said; and Lull knew too, and was cross. Teressa had told. Her sister, who was in service at the Parsonage at Castle Magee, had been to see her, and told her all about the little gentleman from Rowallan who came to every funeral in the churchyard.
"She sez," Mick went on, "that ye were the thoughtful wee man, Patsy, an' it'd melt the heart of a stone to see ye standin' at the grave like an' ould judge, holdin' the mourner's black kid gloves."
"Bah!" said Patsy.
But Lull threatened awful things if Patsy ever went to a funeral again. "Mind, I'll tell yer mother if I ever hear tell of it," she said; "dear knows what disease ye'll be bringin' home to us."
The lesson was impressed more deeply on Patsy's mind by Lull being ill that evening, and going to bed early with a headache. Patsy was terrified. He sat on the mat outside the door till past ten, and refused to go to bed.
"She's just the very ould one would catch it," he said when Jane tried to persuade him to go to bed, "for she works that hard herself."
"Well, I'll go in an' ast her if it's catchin'," Jane said at last.