"Whisht, whisht, for the love av God," said the old woman, "or Ned will hear yez," and turning toward the bedside, hoping that he still slept quietly, she saw but his vacant seat—the boy was gone.
"I know it all, I know it all," she cried. "As sure as God's in heaven this day, he's gone and raised her up himself. I heard him in his sleep, the crature, but thought nothing of his demented talk. Go after him, men! Go after him, I say! He has gone wid her to Drumbhan."
They hurried off with many others who now heard this extraordinary story. They ran eagerly down the hill toward the village here. You know the distance, maybe? Two long miles at least. Well, when they had reached within half a mile of this spot, sure enough, God knows, they overtook the crazy boy, wheeling before him on a barrow the coffin containing the dead body of his mother.
Never did human eye see sight like this before. He heard their hurried footsteps coming on behind him, and setting down the barrow gently on the road, he turned suddenly upon them with all the frenzy of the fiercest madness in his face, and raising up the spade that lay beside the coffin, and brandishing it above his head, he cried, "Back, back, I tell you all; touch her one of you, and I'll cleave him! Didn't I tell you to bring her to Drumbhan? Didn't I tell you she wanted to sleep down here beside her father? You thought that you were good, did you, and Father Connor, too, to put her up in the hill beside the big church there? But what did you know? what did you know? Did she tell any of you last night that she couldn't rest there; did she do that, I say? No, no, she came to me who loved her, to her own poor Ned—she came and asked me to bring her to Drumbhan; and so I will—so I will, I say, in spite of you all! in spite of you all!"
So saying, he raised the barrow once again and passed onward with his burden. They spoke not. They made no effort to turn him from his purpose. Many there were who would gladly have eased the exhausted creature of his burden, but, awe-stricken, they feared to approach him, and silently fell behind a second time in sad procession at the widow's funeral.
At last he reached the gate there. I was standing at it when he came. He wheeled his burden along that path behind us, and to the grave, here. I followed with the rest, as powerless to interfere as they. He laid down the barrow gently again, and taking up the spade he had carried with him, began to dig the grave. I joined him. He looked at me at first inquiringly; then recognizing me, muttered something to himself as if approvingly. Other hands besides ours were soon at work, and a [{802}] few minutes more found Mary resting by her father's side and the last sod carefully replaced—when, failing only when his task was done, the worn-out boy sank senseless upon the grave.
They carried him away gently, and when consciousness returned, they soothed him with kind words. The women blessed him and praised his mother, and his love for her, till recollection returned, and tears for his loss stole silently down the idiot's cheeks. All traces of passion had disappeared, and in its place there seemed the evidence of a new-born intelligence in the mute yet expressive sorrow of that pale face.
He went with them without a murmur; several times turned hastily whilst in sight of the graveyard to look back, then disappeared.
All that day the picture of that poor creature and the scene in which he played so strange a part, haunted me at every step. Still I saw him coming as he did that morning down the hill; the barrow, the coffin, the crowd walking solemnly after. Still I saw it through that long, long day, and leave my fancy it would not. That night I could not rest. True, I had loved poor Mary and I had loved her boy; still I had laid away in their narrow beds many, very many that were dear to me, linked to my affection by the closest ties of kindred, but I had never sorrowed, old man as I was, as I had done that day; never felt such awe at the untold mystery of our nature and the wonderful ways of my God.
In the morning I arose early, early for me, and although no duty called me here till after early prayer's, I took my spade upon my shoulder and came upon my way, feeling drawn toward the place, I knew not why.