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Jessie wept silently, but there were no tears in the eyes of the young men, as with beating hearts they sat listening to the slow, solemn sounds which came echoing up the hill. There was a pause; the sexton's dirgelike task was done, and now it only remained for him to strike the age, and tell how many years the departed one had numbered.
The low voice of the King in reply was not heard, but those habituated to read his countenance in its very faint varieties of expression, might have seen that it conveyed reproof; and its purport soon became practically known, when a lugubrious prelude was heard from a quarter of the hall, in which sate certain ghost-like musicians in white robes white as winding-sheets; and forthwith a dolorous and dirgelike voice chaunted a long and most tedious recital of the miracles and martyrdom of some early saint.
There was a conscious funeral pageantry in the ring of its measured phrases that recalled to many burials of the dead that had taken place in their widely scattered homes. Mrs. Barbauld’s hymn, "Flee as a Bird to the Mountain," are the words usually sung to the air. Costigan presently cut across the dirgelike refrain with: "Phwat th’ divil is ut about that chune that Oi’m thinkin’ of?"
Rind and the pleasant-looking woman cried outright, and Uncle Peter, between times, kept ejaculating, "Oh, Lord! oh, massy sake! oh, for land!" while he industriously plied his fiddle bow in the execution of "Delia's Dirge," which really sounded unearthly, and dirgelike enough.
Gusts of rain and the water from the roof beat against the south windows, while the wailing wind played its mournful cadences about the eaves, and the stanch timbers added their creaking notes to swell the dirgelike chorus.
Now I was a philosopher, full of serenity and ease. I had found a refuge from humor, from the hot chase of the shy quip, from the degrading pursuit of the panting joke, from the restless reach after the nimble repartee. I had not known Heffelbower well. When he came back, I let him talk, fearful that he might prove to be a jarring note in the sweet, dirgelike harmony of his establishment.
At the far end was a summerhouse. He turned up his coat collar and ran. As he drew near, he heard a slow and dirgelike whistling proceeding from the interior. Plunging in out of breath, just as the deluge began, he found Spennie seated at the little wooden table with an earnest expression on his face. The table was covered with cards. "How Jim took exercise," said Spennie, glancing up.
At the opening notes of the melody a slow, wailing, dirgelike air the cats rose, and circled round their mistress, marching to the tune. Now they followed each other singly; now, at a change in the melody, they walked two and two; and, now again, they separated into divisions of three each, and circled round the chair in opposite directions.
The plate darkened, and there were strains of slow, dirgelike music; then it lighted again, presenting a view of a broad hallway, thronged with men and women in bright varicolored costumes.
The low voice of the King in reply was not heard, but those habituated to read his countenance in its very faint varieties of expression, might have seen that it conveyed reproof; and its purport soon became practically known, when a lugubrious prelude was heard from a quarter of the hall, in which sate certain ghost-like musicians in white robes white as winding-sheets; and forthwith a dolorous and dirgelike voice chaunted a long and most tedious recital of the miracles and martyrdom of some early saint.
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