“Who the devil does this head belong to?” exclaimed the miller.—“Oh Christ—!”
“Whoever _owned_ it,” said the man, “had _three_ ears, at any rate, though they don’t _match_.”
A search being now made, Ned’s headless body was discovered lying half over the bank, and Dennis in a swoon, through fright and loss of blood, was found recumbent by its side. The latter, when brought to himself, (which process was effected by whisky,) recited the whole adventure. The body was attended to the grave by a numerous assemblage of Ned’s countrymen; and the custom of carrying scythes carelessly very much declined. Many accidents had happened before from that cause, and the priest very judiciously told his flock, after the _de profundis_, that Ned’s _misfortune_ was a “devil’s judgment” for his negligence, whereby he had hurt a child a day or two before.
From that time none of the country-people would on any occasion go after dark to the spot where the catastrophe happened, as they say the doctor stole the head to _natomise_ it; which fact was _confirmed_ by a man without any head being frequently seen by the _women and children_ who were occasionally led to pass the moat of Ascole, not three miles from Athy, in the night-time; and they really believed the apparition to be no other than the ghost of poor Ned Maher looking every where for his head that the doctor had made away with.[21]
This is only mentioned as indicative of the singular flow of ideas of the Irish peasantry. The most serious and solemn events are frequently converted by them into sources of humour and of comic expression that altogether banish any thing under the head of gravity.
The lower orders are never half so happy as at a _wake_—when they can procure candles, punch, a piper, and tobacco, to enable them to sit and smoke round a human corpse! No matter what death it _suffered_, or disorder it died of (except indeed the _bite of a mad dog_). Their hilarity knows no limits; their humorous phrases and remarks flow in a constant stream of quaint wit and pointed repartee, but not in the style or tone of any other people existing. The _wake_ is also their usual place of _match-making_; and the _marriages_ or _misfortunes_ of the ladies are generally decided on “_going home from the wake_.”