the
churchyard is noted?" "For nothing at all, plase your honour," replied
Larry, "except the height of gentility." The stranger was about four feet
high, dressed in what might be called flowing garments,--if, in spite of
their form, their rigidity did not deprive them of all claim to such an
appellation. He wore an antique mitre upon his head; his hands were
folded upon his breast; and over his right shoulder rested a pastoral
crook. There was a solemn expression in his countenance, and his eye
might truly be called stony. His beard could not be well said to wave
upon his bosom; but it lay upon it in ample profusion, stiffer than that
of a Jew on a frosty morning after mist. In short, as Larry soon
discovered to his horror, on looking up at the niche, it was no other
than Saint Colman himself, who had stept forth, indignant (in all
probability) at the stigma cast by the watcher of the dead on the
churchyard of which his Saintship was patron. He smiled with a grisly
solemnity--just such a smile as you might imagine would play round the
lips of a milestone (if it had any,) at the recantation so quickly
volunteered by Larry. "Well," said he, "Lawrence Sweeney"--"How well the
old rogue," thought Larry, "knows my name!" "Since you profess yourself
such an admirer of the merits of the churchyard of Inistubber, get up and
follow me, till I show you the civilities of the place--for I am master
here, and must do the honours." "Willingly would I go with your worship,"
replied our friend; "but you see here I am engaged to Sir Theodore, who,
though a good master, was a mighty passionate man when every thing was
not done as he ordered it; and I am feared to stir." "Sir Theodore," said
the Saint, "will not blame you for following me. I assure you he will
not." "But then," said Larry--"Follow me!" cried the Saint, in a hollow
voice, and casting upon him his stony eye, drew poor Larry after him, as
the bridal guest was drawn by the lapidary glance of the Ancient Mariner;
or, as Larry himself afterwards expressed it, "as a jaw tooth is wrinched
out of an ould woman with a pair of pinchers." The Saint strode before
him in silence, not in the least incommoded by the stones and rubbish,
which at every step sadly contributed to the discomfiture of Larry's
shins, who followed his marble conductor into a low vault, situated at
the west end of the church. The path lay through coffins piled up on each
side of the way in various degrees of decomp