Behind the cart walked four old gipsies playing doleful tunes upon their squeaky violins, whilst the women's voices took up the refrain in another key. Never had I heard dirge more mournful, nor more lugubrious a noise. Pressing after the gipsies came a knot of barefooted relatives, holding lighted tapers in their hands. The tiny flames looked almost ashamed of burning so dimly in the melancholy daylight.
In passing, these weary mortals raised pale faces, looking at me with mournful eyes that expressed no astonishment. Through the gloomy mist they appeared to be so many ghosts, come from nowhere, going towards I know not what. Like shadows they passed and were gone; ... but through the gathering fog the wailing came back to haunt me, curiously persistent, as though the dead from his narrow coffin were calling for help....
Long after this strange vision had disappeared, I stood gazing at the road where traces of their feet had remained imprinted upon the melted snow. Had it all been but an hallucination, created by the melancholy of the day?
As I turned my horse I was confronted by a shadow looming large at a little distance down the road. What could it be? Was this a day of weird apparitions?
It was not without difficulty that I induced my horse to approach the spot; verily, I think that sometimes horses see ghosts!...
On nearing, I perceived that what had frightened my mount was naught but a tall stone cross. Monumental, moss-grown, and mysterious, it stood all alone like a guardian keeping eternal watch over the road. From its outstretched arms great drops were falling to the ground like heavy tears....
Was the old cross weeping—weeping because a lovely funeral had passed that way?...
*
*—*
I must talk a little about these strange old crosses that on all roads I have come upon, that I have met with in every part of the country.
As yet I have not quite fathomed their meaning—but I love them, they seem so well in keeping with the somewhat melancholy character of the land.