She was more lively than the first corpse, for he had scarcely taken any of the clay away from about her, when she sat up and began to cry, " Ho, you hodach (clown)! Ha, you bcdach I Where has he been that he got no bed ? "
Poor Teig drew back, and when she found that she was getting no answer, she closed her eyes gently, lost her vigour, and fell back quietly and slowly under the clay. Teig did to her as he had done to the man—he threw the clay back on her, and left the flags down overhead.
He began digging again near the door, but before he had
thrown up more than a couple of shovelfuls, he noticed a man's hand laid bare by the spade. " By my soul, I'll go no further, then," said he to himself; " what use is it for me ? " And he threw the clay in again on it, and settled the flags as they had been before.
He left the church then, and his heart was heavy enough, but he shut the door and locked it, and left the key where he found it. He sat down on a tombstone that was near the door, and began thinking. He was in great doubt what he should do. He laid his face between his two hands, and cried for grief and fatigue, since he was dead certain at this time that he never would come home alive. He made another attempt to loosen the hands of the corpse that were squeezed round his neck, but they were as tight as if they were clamped; and the more he tried to loosen them, the tighter they squeezed him. He was going to sit down once more, wlien the cold, horrid lips of the dead man said to him, " Carrick-fhad-vic-Orus," and he remembered the command of the good people to bring the corpse tath him to that place if he should be unable to bury it Where he had been.
He rose up, and looked about him. " I don't know the T7ay," he said.
As soon as he had uttered the word, the corpse stretched out suddenly its left hand that had been tightened round his neck, and kept it pointing out, showing him the road he ought to follow. Teig went in the direction that the fingers were stretched, and passed out of the churchyard. He found himself on an old rutty, stony road, and he stood still again, not knowing where to turn. The corpse stretched out its bony hand a second time, and pointed out to him another road—not the road by which he had come when approaching the old church. Teig followed that road, and whenever he came to a path or road meeting it, the corpse always stretched out its hand and pointed with its fingers, showing him the way he was to take.
Many was the cross-road he turned down, and many was the crooked boreen he walked, until he saw from him
an old burying-groiind at last, beside the road, but there M-as neither church nor chapel nor any other building in it. The corpse squeezed him tightly, and he stood. " Bury me, bury me in the burying-ground," said the voice.
Teig drew over towards the old burying-place, and he was not more than about twenty yards from it, when, raising his eyes, he saw hundreds and hundreds of ghosts— men, women, and children—sitting on the top of the wall round about, or standing on the inside of it, or running backwards and forwards, and pointing at him, while he could see their mouths opening and shutting as if they were speaking, though he heard no word, nor any sound amongst them at all.
He was afraid to go forward, so he stood where he was, and the moment he stood, all the ghosts became quiet, and ceased moving. Then- Teig understood that it was trying to keep him from going in, that they were. He walked a couple of yards forwards, and immediately the whole crowd rushed together towards the spot to which he was moving^ and they stood so thickly together that it seemed to him that he never could break through them, even though he had a mind to try. But he had no mind to try it He went back broken and dispirited, and when he had gone a couple of hundred yards from the burying-ground, he stood again, for he did not know what way he was to go. He heard the voice of the corpse in his ear, saying " TeampoU-Ronan,'' and the skinny hand was stretched out again, pointing hi^ out the road.
As tired as he was, he had to walk, and the road was neither short nor even. The night was darker than ever, and it was difficult to make his way. Many was the toss he got, and many a bruise they left on his body. At last he saw Teampoll-Ronan from him in the distance, standing in the middle of the burying-ground. He moved over towards it, and thought he was all right and safe, when he saw no ghosts nor anything else on the wall, and he thought he would never be hindered now from leaving his load ofif him at last. He moved over to the gate,
but as he was passing in, he tripped on the threshold Before he could recover himself, something that he could not see seized him by the neclc, by the hands, and by the feet, and bruised him, and shook him, and choked him, until he was nearly dead ; and at last he was lifted up, and carried more than a hundred yards from that place, and then thrown down in an old dyke, with the corpse still clinging to him.
He rose up, bruised and sore, but feared to go near the place again, for he had seen nothing the time he was thrown down and carried away.
" You corpse, up on my back," said he, '* shall I go over again to the churchyard ? "—but the corpse never answered him. '* That's a sign you don't wish me to try it again," said Teig.
He was now in great doubt as to what he ought to do, when the corpse spoke in his ear, and said " Imlogue-Fada."
"Oh, murder !" said Teig, "must I bring you there? If you keep me long walking like this, I tell you I'll fall under you."
He went on, however, in the direction the corpse pointed out to him. He could not have told, himself, how long he had been going, when the dead man behind suddenly squeezed him, and said, " There !"
Teig looked from him, and he saw a little low wall, nhat was so broken down in places that it was no wall at all. It was in a great wide field, in from the road ; and only for three or four great stones at the corners, that were more like rocks than stones, there was nothing to show that there was either graveyard or burying-ground there.
"Is this Imlogue-Fada? Shall I bury you here?" said Teig.
" Yes," said the voice.
"But I see no grave or gravestone, only this pile of stones," said Teig.
The corpse did not answer, but stretched out its long fleshless hand, to show Teig the direction in which he was
to go. Teig went on accordingly, but he was greatly terrified, for he remembered what had happened to him at the last place. He went on, " with his heart in his mouth," as he said himself afterwards; but when he came to within fifteen or twenty yards of the little low square wall, there broke out a flash of lightning, bright yellow and red, with blue streaks in it, and went round about the wall in one course, and it swept by as fast as the swallow in the clouds, and the longer Teig remained looking at it the faster it went, till at last it became like a bright ring of flame round the old graveyard, which no one could pass without being burnt by it. Teig never saw, from the time he was born, and never saw afterwards, so wonderful or so splendid a sight as that was.
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