22 STRAY -AW AYS 



forgotten in the hilariousness that comes in the small 

 hours of a wake, with the candles waning at his head 

 and feet, and his lips apparently repressing much 

 humour of an inscrutable sort. 



His funeral is thought by those attending it to be 

 the gi'catest sight ever seen in the district. Till a late 

 hour in the afternoon the bohireen is trodden into 

 mud by the hobnailed boots, horse-hoofs, and bare 

 feet of the gathering assemblage, and down by the 

 workshop some rickety outside cars wait to take 

 their places in the procession. Outside the house of 

 mourning, under the trees and the gloomy sky, stands 

 a table, white-draped and cheerless, with the Delegate's 

 best dinner-plate laid upon it. On the plate is a low 

 heap of half-crowns and smaller silver, placed there 

 by the guests, each of whom, male and female, 

 receives in recognition a glass of whisky. It is not, 

 however, in payment for the whisky that awkward 

 fingers toss down their shillings and half-crowns ; a 

 matter of infinite moment is contained in the act, even 

 such a thing as the repose of the Delegate's soul. 

 Could he but look with bodily eyes from his coffined 

 darkness, how would he regard the little silver heap, 

 the amount that his friends will spare to shape for 

 him a bulwark against the unknown terror ? Possibly 

 with more stoicism than others might, and with the 

 added reflection that for no one else in the country 

 would the heap have been so large. 



The Irish cry is becoming a little old-fashioned even 

 in Connemara, and there are only a few women 

 competent to uplift it when the coffin is at length 

 carried down the bohireen; but these do not spare 

 themselves in the raising of the dirge, and sway 

 theatrically to its rhythm in their walk. The coffin 

 is thus carried for a short distance only on its 

 four-mile journey, being at the foot of the first hill 



