This was accordingly performed, though not without tears and sobs, and frequent demonstrations of grief; for religion among the peasantry is often associated with bursts of deep and powerful feeling.

When the prayer was over, the boy rose and calmly strapped to his back a satchel covered with deer-skin, containing a few books, linen, and a change of very plain apparel.  While engaged in this, the uproar of grief in the house was perfectly heart-rending.  When just ready to set out, he reverently took off his hat, knelt down, and, with tears streaming from his eyes, craved humbly and meekly the blessing and forgiveness of his father and mother.  The mother caught him in her arms, kissed his lips, and, kneeling also, sobbed out a fervent benediction upon his head; the father now, in the grief of a strong man, pressed him to his heart, until the big burning tears fell upon the boy’s face; his brothers and sisters embraced him wildly; next his more distant relations; and lastly, the neighbors who were crowded about the door.  After this he took a light staff in his hand, and, first blessing himself after the form of his church, proceeded to a strange land in quest of education.

He had not gone more than a few perches from the door, when his mother followed him with a small bottle of holy water.  “Jimmy, a lanna voght,” (* my poor child) said she, “here’s this, an’ carry it about you—­it will keep evil from you; an’ be sure to take good care of the written correckther you got from the priest an’ Square Benson; an’, darlin’, don’t be lookin’ too often at the cuff o’ your coat, for feard the people might get a notion that you have the bank-notes sewed in it.  An’, Jimmy agra, don’t be too lavish upon their Munster crame; they say it’s apt to give people the ague.  Kiss me agin, agra; an’ the heavens above keep you safe and well till we see you once more!”

She then tenderly, and still with melancholy pride, settled his shirt collar, which she thought did not set well about his neck, and kissing him again, with renewed sorrow left him to pursue his journey.

M’Evoy’s house was situated on the side of a dark hill—­one of that barren description which can be called neither inland nor mountain.  It commanded a wide and extended prospect, and the road along which the lad travelled was visible for a considerable distance from it.  On a small hillock before the door sat Dominek and his wife, who, as long as their son was visible, kept their eyes, which were nearly blinded with tears, rivetted upon his person.  It was now they gave full vent to their grief, and discussed with painful and melancholy satisfaction all the excellent qualities which he possessed.  As James himself advanced, one neighbor after another fell away from the train which accompanied him, not, however, until they had affectionately embraced and bid him adieu, and perhaps slipped, with peculiar delicacy, an additional mite into his waistcoat pocket.  After the neighbors, then followed the gradual separation from his friends—­one by one left him, as in the great journey of life, and in a few hours he found himself accompanied only by his favorite brother.