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"Was that you, Patsy? I heard a voice somewhere." The child shook his head in token of dissent. "Ayeh! it was only the wind through the ould walls; but sure it might be nat'ral enough for sighs and sobs to be here: there's many a one has floated over this damp clay." He resumed his work once more. The night was falling fast as Owen stepped from the deep grave, and knelt down to say a prayer ere he committed the body to the earth. "Kneel down, darlin', here by my side," said he, placing his arm round the little fellow's waist; "'tis the likes of you God loves best;" and joining the tiny hands with his own, he uttered a deep and fervent prayer for the soul of the departed. "There, father!" said he, as he arose at last, and in a voice as if addressing a living person at his side; "there, father: the Lord, he knows my heart inside me; and if walking the world barefoot would give ye peace or ease, I'd do it, for you were a kind man and a good father to me." He kissed the coffin as he spoke, and stood silently gazing on it. Arousing himself with a kind of struggle, he untied the cords, and lifted the coffin from the cart. For some seconds he busied himself in arranging the ropes beneath it, and then ceased suddenly, on remembering that he could not lower it into the grave unassisted. "I'll have to go down the road for some one," muttered he to himself; but as he said this, he perceived at some distance off in the churchyard the figure of a man, as if kneeling over a grave. "The Lord help him, he has his grief too!" ejaculated Owen, as he moved towards him. On coming nearer he perceived that the grave was newly made, and from its size evidently that of a child. "I ax your pardon," said Owen, in a timid voice, after waiting for several minutes in the vain expectation that the man would look up; "I ax your pardon for disturbing you, but maybe you'll be kind enough to help me to lay this coffin in the ground. I have nobody with me but a child." The man started and looked round. Their eyes met; it was Phil Joyce and Owen who now confronted each other. But how unlike were both to what they were at their last parting! Then, vindictive passion, outraged pride, and vengeance, swelled every feature and tingled in every fibre of their frames. Now, each stood pale, care-worn, and dispirited, wearied out by sorrow, and almost brokenhearted. Owen was the first to speak. "I axed your pardon before I saw you, Phil Joyce
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