We had now reached the burial ground; near which the funeral was met by the parish priest, and the procession went three times round the cemetry, preceded by the priest, who repeated the _De profundis_ as did all the congregation.
“This ceremony,” said Father John, “is performed by us instead of the funeral service, which is denied to the Roman Catholics. For _we_ are not permitted, like the Protestant ministers, to perform the last solemn office for our departed fellow creatures.”
While he spoke we entered the churchyard, and I expressed my surprise to Glorvina, who seemed wrapt in solemn meditation, at the singular appearance of this rustic little cemetery, where, instead of the monumental marble,
an osier, twisted into the form of a cross, wreathed with faded foliage, garlands made of the pliant sally, twined with flowers; alone distinguished the “narrow house,” where
“The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”
Without answering, she led me gently forward towards a garland which seemed newly planted. We paused. A young woman who had attended the funeral, and withdrawn from the crowd, approached the garland at the same moment, and taking some fresh gathered flowers from her apron, strewed them over the new made grave, then kneeling beside it wept and prayed.
“It is the tomb of her lover,” said I.--“_Of her father!_” said Glorvina, in a voice whose affecting tone sunk to my heart, while her eyes, raised to heaven, were suffused with tears. The filial mourner now arose and departed, and we approached the simple shrine of her sorrowing devotion. Glorvina took from it a sprig of rosemary--its leaves were humid! “It is not _all_ dew,” said Glorvina, with a sad smile, while her own tears fell on it, and she presented it to me.
“Then you think me worthy of sharing in these divine feelings,” I exclaimed, as I kissed off the sacred drops; while I was now confirmed in the belief that the tenderness, the sufferings, and declining health of her father, rendered him at that moment the sole object of her solicitude and affection. And with him only, could I, without madness, share the tender, sensible, angelic heart of this sweet interesting being.
Observing her emotion increase, as she stood near the spot sacred to filial grief, I endeavoured to draw away her attention by remarking, that almost every tomb had now a votarist. “It is a strong instance,” said Glorvina, “of the sensibility of the Irish, that they repair at intervals to the tombs of their deceased friends to drop a tender tear, or heave a heart-breathed sigh, to the memory of those so lamented in death, so dear to them in life. For my own part, in the stillness of a fine evening, I often wander towards this solemn spot, where the flowers newly thrown on the tombs, and weeping with the tears of departed day, always speak to my heart a tale of woe it feels and understands. While, as the breeze of evening mourns softly round me, I involuntarily exclaim, ‘And when I shall follow the crowd that presses forward to eternity, what affectionate hand will scatter flowers over _my_ solitary tomb? for haply, ere that period arrive, _my_ trembling hand shall have placed the cypress on the tomb of him who alone loved me living, and would lament me dead.’”