Replying in the country phraseology, "God save you kindly," I raised my eyes to see the passing figure of a stooped old man, with a spade upon his shoulder, moving slowly onward 'neath his weight of years and in my direction. Always fond of a companion, when wandering in this way, being usually fortunate enough to meet with those to whom the scenes around me were familiar, and from whom I often learned much indeed that was new and interesting, I arose to resume my walk. Strongly impressed by the venerable form of the old peasant, as I deemed him, and thus attracted, I joined him, making some casual remarks about the appearance of the country, which easily opened the way to conversation. Enough of years have passed since that autumn morning to have worn out the then feeble thread of the old man's life, but palpable to my memory as the recollections of my wedding day is every lineament of that expressive face. I hear again, as I write, the gentle music of his voice, his white hairs float before me stirred by the morning mountain breeze, and I greet again his expressive salutation, felt again if again unspoken, "God save you kindly."
To all my inquiries touching the country round about, and the harvest, then all but gathered from the fields, he replied in that simple yet lucid manner common to the most uneducated Irish peasant, when he speaks of things familiar to him, chastened in his every remark by expressions of his gratitude to God for bounties received, and of his reliance upon his wisdom and goodness in affliction.
His calling, he told me, was a sad one. He, too, was a laborer in the field, but the harvest he gathered was moist with the tears of many. Death himself was the reaper. He was the village sexton.
I had often before met men of his melancholy occupation, but the hearts of these seemed to have been hardened by the very nature of their handicraft, as they became familiarized with that sorrow, bitterest to human nature—the parting for ever in this world with the truest and best beloved; but in the good old man beside me the keenest sympathy for his suffering fellow mortals seemed to have found a meet and fitting resting-place.
I learned from him that a few rods further on my way stood the chapel and burying-ground of Drumbhan, where, for some fifty years back, he had made the last dwelling-places of his friends and neighbors. Five minutes' walking brought us to the open gate and to the pathway leading to the modest village church, within whose sacred walls a number of the villagers had already gathered to early mass.
Guided by my new acquaintance, I also entered, joining in the sacred ceremony, which began soon afterward.
How is it, I ask you who have accompanied me thus far, reader, how is it—and the feeling is common to almost all of us—that in such a simple edifice as that I knelt in, paintless and unpictured, unadorned by the bright conceptions of genius or the cunning fingers of art; with naked floor and whitewashed wall; window untinted with Scripture story, itself suggestive of devotion; no ornament save the simple embellishments of the altar; no music save the solemn voice of the priest, distinctly audible in the respectful stillness of the place; how is it, I ask you, that in such a sanctuary our souls seem to reach nearer to their God in silent adoration, than when we kneel on velvet cushions in the temples of the city, with their graven oak and marble pillars, their lofty domes of painted glass, their frescoes and their statuary, their mighty organs and their hundred choristers?
On leaving the church, at the conclusion f the mass, I rejoined the sexton, who had stopped a moment at the porch for his spade, where he had left it in an angle as we entered. I followed him across the yard and through the wicket which separated us from the burying-ground. Calling my attention to some of the more imposing monuments of the place, he passed forward along the narrow pathway to perform the melancholy task which he had told me was his first duty of this morning—to make a grave for the last, the very last, of the companions of his boyhood; one, he said, whose death, like his life, was all peace, and that was part of the reward of the gentleness of his nature, the fulness of which was hereafter.
Passing from stone to stone, to linger for a moment at this which told its tale of the early call of the young and innocent, or at that which spoke of many years and mayhap of many sorrows, I stopped near to one which, from the quaintness of the inscription and chaste simplicity of its form had a peculiar attraction for me. It was a cross in granite with a wreath not unskilfully chiselled crowning the upper limb, whilst along the extended arms was a single line, "The 'Widow and her Son."