, the half
of them plumped up to their necks in a soft place on the other side, and
came as near losin' their lives as could be thought. Bedad now, they
were comical to behould, goodness forgive her for sayin' so, all bawlin'
and flounderin' about like a flock of sheep stuck in a bog, on'y it was
a white bog and black sheep, as she minded Tom Ennis, that was a quare
codger, sayin' at the time." And this again started old O'Beirne upon
reminiscences of remarkable buryings which had come under his own
observation.

"Comical it may have been," he said, "but I'll bet you me best brogues
ne'er a one of yous ever witnessed a quarer buryin' than a one I seen
down in the south some ould ages ago, when I was a slip of a lad. But
I'll maybe ha' tould you the story, ma'am--about the flood in the
Tullaroe River?"

"Was that the time it riz up suddint and dhrownded the crathur that was
diggin' the grave?" said Mrs. Carbery.

"Sure not at all: that happint up at Lough Gortragh, and this I'm
talkin' about was in the Tullaroe River, a dale souther of the Lough.
Outrageous it does be in the wet saisons. So one harvest day, when it
was flowin' over all before it, there was a walkin' funeral about
crossin' at the ford. The way of it was, they were after hangin' a lad
up at the jail. In those days it's very ready they were wid the hangin',
and in a hurry over it too sometimes. Howane'er the frinds of this lad
had got lave to be buryin' him dacint after he would be hanged; and me
poor father, and meself, and plinty of other people were follyin'. Till
they come to the ford, and when they seen the manner the wather was
runnin' wild, the bearers had a notion to be turnin' back; but they made
up their minds, and on they wint. And as sure as they did, one of the
lads must needs slip his fut, and they right in the middle of the river,
and down wid the whole lot of thim, like a stook of oats in a gale of
win'; 'twas twinty wonders e'er a man of thim ever got his feet under
him agin. Faix, now the yell every sowl let you might ha' heard
anywheres at all; for some of thim was thinkin' the misfort'nit body was
apt to be swep' away and mortally dhrowned to the back of bein' hung;
and some of thim wasn't thinkin' any such a thing. But as for the
coffin, I'll give you me word if it didn't take and set off wid itself
floatin' away bobbin' along atop of the wather as light now, as if it
was a lafe dhropped down from the boughs archin' over our heads--a