Mournfully the procession passed along till it reached the cross road leading to this village here; but continuing their journey, those forming it were suddenly interrupted by a wild unearthly cry from the lips of the idiot.
"Where are yez goin', men, where are yez goin', men, I say? You must take her to Drumbhan, you must take her to Drumbhan! She said she would lie there some day beside her father; do you hear that, men? So bring her to Drumbhan, I say!"
His agony was fearful, his shriek inhuman in the fierceness of its passion. The bearers stopped, the mourners gathered around the boy, but vain was every effort to appease him, and still his cry rose far above their words of comfort: "Bring her to Drumbhan, oh! bring her to Drumbhan!"
None there knew, as I have said, the mother's story, and all believed this but a wild unreasonable fancy of poor Ned's; but had it been otherwise, what could they do? The grave was already made, and the good priest waiting to give the last religious rite to the body of this patient and enduring Christian.
Seeing that they again moved on, Ned suddenly ceased his cry, as if he had formed some strange resolution which pacified him, and relapsed into the sudden gloom that had preceded the outcry of his anguish. They buried her; he came away quietly with them. They sought, some of them, to bring him to their houses, thinking to save him the agony of returning home just then to miss her presence; but all efforts to lead him any way but that toward his desolate home were fruitless He returned to the cottage. He sat down by the vacant bed and rocked himself to and fro, singing with mournful pathos snatches from an old ballad, a favorite of his mother's.
An old neighbor promising to remain with him that night and care for the cottage till next day, when arrangements were to be made for the disposal of its contents and for the future of poor Ned, the others went to their homes.
The shadows of the night came down. In and near the cottage all was silent. The old woman crept toward the boy to rouse him from his lethargy, and to urge him to take some food which she had prepared for him. He was asleep. Thanking God for this, his greatest gift to the sorrowing heart, the old woman sat down, and, covering her shoulders with her clock, dozed away an hour or two, then awoke and watched, then slept again, again awoke to find the idiot still asleep, then slept again.
About an hour after sunrise she started from her seat, alarmed by an outcry at the door, her name being loudly called, "In God's name, what's the matter? who's dead now? is it the priest, alanna?"
"Oh! may the Lord be betune us an harum," said a voice from amongst a crowd of excited people at the door, "if they haven't raised poor Mary's body in the night! Here's Brian an' myself saw the empty grave as we passed by the chapel yard just now. Sure never was such a thing as that ever heard of before in Castlewellan anyhow."