g. Many a convivial hour have he and
I spent together; and a more hospitable man besides, never yet existed.
Although firmly attached to his own religion, he is no bigot; but, on
the contrary, an excellent, liberal, and benevolent man."

When the offerings were all collected, he returned to the altar,
repeated a few additional prayers in prime style--as rapid as lightning;
and after hastily shaking the holy water on the crowd, the funeral
moved oh. It was now two o'clock, the day clear and frosty, and the sun
unusually bright for the season. During mass, many were added to those
who formed the funeral train at the outset; so that, when we got out
upon the road, the procession appeared very large. After this, few or
none joined it; for it is esteemed by no means "dacent" to do so after
mass, because, in that case, the matter is ascribed to an evasion of the
offerings; but those whose delay has not really been occasioned by this
motive, make it a point to pay them at the grave-yard, or after the
interment, and sometimes even on the following day--so jealous are
the peasantry of having any degrading suspicion attached to their
generosity.

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