"THESE STRANGE OLD CROSSES.... THEY STAND BY THE WAY-SIDE" (p. [33]).
All of a sudden, I heard a weird sound coming towards me out of the distance, something the like of which I had never heard before....
Drawing in my reins, I stood still at the edge of the road wondering what I was to see.
Unexpected indeed was the procession that, like a strange dream, was coming towards me from out the mist!
Wading through the melting snow advanced two small boys, carrying between them a round tin platter on which lay a flat cake; behind them came an old priest carrying a cross in his hand, gaudily attired in faded finery—red, gold and blue. His heavy vestment was all splashed and soiled, his long hair and unkempt beard were dirty-grey, like the road upon which he walked. A sad old man, with no expression but that of misery upon his yellow shrunken face.
Close behind his heels followed a rough wooden cart drawn by oxen whose noses almost touched the ground; their breath formed small clouds about their heads, through which their eyes shone with patient anxiety.
It was from this cart that the weird sound was rising. What could it be? Then all at once I understood!
A plain deal coffin had been placed in the middle of the cart; seated around it were a number of old women, wailing and weeping, raising their voices in a dismal chant, that rang like a lament through the air. Their white hair was dishevelled, and their black veils floated around them like thin wisps of smoke.