The order of the funeral now was as follows:—­Foremost the women—­next to them the corpse, surrounded by the relations—­the eldest son, in deep affliction, “led the coffin,” as chief mourner, holding in his hand the corner of a sheet or piece of linen, fastened to the mort-cloth, called moor-cloth.  After the coffin came those who were on foot, and in the rear were the equestrians.  When we were a quarter of a mile from the churchyard, the funeral was met by a dozen of singing-boys, belonging to a chapel choir, which the priest, who was fond of music, had some time before formed.  They fell in, two by two, immediately behind the corpse, and commenced singing the Requiem, or Latin hymn for the dead.

The scene through which we passed at this time, though not clothed with the verdure and luxuriant beauty of summer, was, nevertheless, marked by that solemn and decaying splendor which characterizes a fine country, lit up by the melancholy light of a winter setting sun.  It was, therefore, much more in character with the occasion.  Indeed—­I felt it altogether beautiful; and, as the “dying day-hymn stole aloft,” the dim sunbeams fell, through a vista of naked, motionless trees, upon the coffin, which was borne with a slower and more funereal pace than before, in a manner that threw a solemn and visionary light upon the whole procession, this, however, was raised to something dreadfully impressive, when the long train, thus proceeding with a motion so mournful, as seen, each, or at least the majority of them, covered with a profusion of crimson ribbons, to indicate that the corpse they bore—­owed, his death to a deed of murder.  The circumstance of the sun glancing his rays upon the coffin was not unobserved by the peasantry, who considered it as a good omen to the spirit of the departed.

As we went up the street which had been the scene of the quarrel that proved so fatal to Kelly, the coffin was again laid down on the spot where he received his death-blow; and, as was usual, the wild and melancholy keene was raised.  My brother saw many of Grimes’s friends among the spectators, but he himself was not visible.  Whether Kelly’s party saw then or not, we could not say; if they did, they seemed not to notice them, for no expression of revenge or indignation escaped them.

At length we entered the last receptacle of the dead.  The coffin was now placed upon the shoulders of the son and brothers of the deceased, and borne round the church-yard; whilst the priest, with his stole upon him, preceded it, reading prayers for the eternal repose of the soul.  Being then laid beside the grave, a “De profundis” was repeated by the priest and the mass-server; after which a portion of fresh clay, carried from the fields, was brought to his Reverence, who read a prayer over it, and consecrated it.  This is a ceremony which is never omitted at the interment of a Roman Catholic.  When it was over, the coffin was laid into the grave, and the blessed clay shaken over it.  The priest now took the shovel in his own hands, and threw in the three first shovelfuls—­one in the name of the Father, one in the name of the Son, and one in the name of the Holy Ghost.  The sexton then took it, and in a short time Denis Kelly was fixed for ever in his narrow bed.