There was from the bridge an ascent in the road, not so gradual as that by which I descended on the other side; and as the coffin was rather heavy, I began to repent of having anything to do with it; for I was by no means experienced in carrying coffins.  The carriage of it was, indeed, altogether an irksome and unpleasant concern; for owing to my ignorance of using the rope that tied it skilfully, it was every moment sliding down my back, dragging along the stones, or bumping against my heels:  besides, I saw no sufficient grounds I had for entering upon the ludicrous and odd employment of carrying another man’s coffin, and was several; times upon the point of washing my hands out of it altogether.  But the novelty of the incident, and the mystery in which it was involved, decided me in bringing it as far as Kelly’s house, which was exactly on my way home.

I had yet half a mile to go; but I thought it would be best to strap it more firmly about my body before I could start again:  I therefore set it standing on its end, just at the turn of the road, until I should breathe a little, for I was rather exhausted by a trudge under it of half a mile and upwards.  Whilst the coffin was in this position, I standing exactly behind it (Kelly had been a tall man, consequently it was somewhat higher than I was), a crowd of people, bearing lights, advanced round the corner; and the first object which presented itself to their vision, was the coffin in, that position, whilst I was totally invisible behind it.  As soon as they saw it, there was an involuntary cry of consternation from the whole crowd; at this time I had the coffin once more strapped firmly by a running knot to my shoulders, so that I could loose it whenever I pleased.  On seeing the party, and hearing certain expressions which dropped from them, I knew at once that there had been some unlucky blunder in the business on their part; and I would have given a good deal to be out of the circumstances in which I then stood.  I felt that I could not possibly have accounted for my situation, without bringing myself in for as respectable a portion of rank cowardice as those who ran away from the coffin; for that it was left behind in a fit of terror, I now entertained no doubt whatever, particularly when I remembered the traditions connected with the spot in which I found it.

“Manim a Yea agus a wurrah!"* exclaimed one of them, “if the black man hasn’t brought it up from the bridge! Dher a larna heena**, he did; for it was above the bridge we first seen him:  jist for all the world—­the Lord be about us—­as Antony and me war coming out on the road at the bridge, there he was standing—­a headless man, all black, without face or eyes upon him—­and then we left the coffin and cut acrass the fields home.”

     * My soul to God and the Virgin.

     ** By the very book—­meaning the Bible, which, in the
     Irish, is not simply called the book, but the very
     book, or the book itself.