Having left the grave-yard, he retraced his steps towards Frank Farrell’s house.  The sun had now risen, and as Owen ascended the larger of the two hills which we have mentioned, he stood again to view the scene that stretched beneath him.  About an hour before all was still, the whole country lay motionless, as if the land had been a land of the dead.  The mountains, in the distance, were covered with the thin mists of morning; the milder and richer parts of the landscape had appeared in that dim gray distinctness which gives to distant objects such a clear outline.  With the exception of the blackbird’s song, every thing seemed as if stricken into silence; there was not a breeze stirring; both animate and inanimate nature reposed as if in a trance; the very trees appeared asleep, and their leaves motionless, as if they had been of marble.  But now the scene was changed.  The sun had flung his splendor upon the mountain-tops, from which the mists were tumbling in broken fragments to the valleys between them.  A thousand birds poured their songs upon the ear; the breeze was up, and the columns of smoke from the farm-houses and cottages played, as if in frolic, in the air.  A white haze was beginning to rise from the meadows; early teams were afoot; and laborers going abroad to their employment.  The lakes in the distance shone like mirrors; and the clear springs on the mountain-sides glittered in the sun, like gems on which the eye could scarcely rest.  Life, and light, and motion, appear to be inseparable.  The dew of morning lay upon nature like a brilliant veil, realizing the beautiful image of Horace, as applied to woman: 

     Vultus nimium lubricus aspici.

By-and-by the songs of the early workmen were heard; nature had awoke, and Owen, whose heart was strongly, though unconsciously, alive to the influence of natural religion, participated in the general elevation of the hour, and sought with freshened spirits the house of his entertainer.

As he entered this hospitable roof, the early industry of his friend’s wife presented him with a well-swept hearth and a pleasant fire, before which had been placed the identical chair that they had appropriated to his own use.  Frank was enjoying “a blast o’ the pipe,” after having risen; to which luxury the return of Owen gave additional zest and placidity.  In fact, Owen’s presence communicated a holiday spirit to the family; a spirit, too, which declined not for a moment during the period of his visit.

“Frank,” said Owen, “to tell you the thruth, I’m not half plased wid you this mornin’.  I think you didn’t thrate me as I ought to expect to be thrated.”

“Musha, Owen M’Carthy, how is that?”

“Why, you said nothin’ about widow Murray raisin’ a head-stone over our child.  You kept me in the dark there, Frank, an’ sich a start I never got as I did this mornin’, in the grave-yard beyant.”

“Upon my sowl, Owen, it wasn’t my fau’t, nor any of our fau’ts; for, to tell you the thruth, we had so much to think and discoorse of last night, that it never sthruck me, good or bad.  Indeed it was Bridget that put it first in my head, afther you wint out, an’ thin it was too late.  Ay, poor woman, the dacent strain was ever in her, the heaven’s be her bed.”