On the day after that some of whose events we have just recorded, and towards nightfall, Mary Martin slowly drove along the darkly wooded avenue of Cro' Martin. An unusual sadness overweighed her. She was just returning from the funeral of poor old Mat Landy, one of her oldest favorites as a child. He it was who first taught her to hold an oar; and, seated beside him, she first learned to steer a “corragh” through the wild waves of the Atlantic. His honest, simple nature, his fine manly contentedness with a very humble lot, and a cheerful gayety of heart that seemed never to desert him, were all traits likely to impress such a child as she had been and make his companionship a pleasure. With a heavy heart was it, therefore, now that she thought over these things, muttering to herself as she went along snatches of the old songs he used to sing, and repeating mournfully the little simple proverbs he would utter about the weather. The last scene itself had been singularly mournful. Two fishermen of the coast alone accompanied the car which bore the coffin; death or sickness was in every house; few could be spared to minister to the dead, and even of those, the pale shrunk features and tottering limbs bespoke how dearly the duty cost them. Old Mat had chosen for his last resting-place a little churchyard that crowned a cliff over the sea,--a wild, solitary spot,--an old gable, a ruined wall, a few low gravestones, and no more. The cliff itself, rising abruptly from the sea to some four hundred feet, was perforated with the nests of sea-fowl, whose melancholy cries, as they circled overhead, seemed to ring out a last requiem. There it was they now laid him. Many a time from that bleak summit had he lighted a beacon fire to ships in distress. Often and often, from that same spot, had he gazed out over the sea, to catch signs of those who needed succor, and now that bold heart was still and that strong arm stiffened, and the rough, deep voice that used to sound above the tempest, silent forever. [Illustration: 188] “Never mind, Patsey,” said Mary, to one of the fishermen, who was endeavoring with some stray fragments of a wreck to raise a little monument over the spot, “I'll look to that hereafter.” And so saying, she turned mournfully away to descend the cliff. A stranger, wrapped in a large boat-cloak, had been standing for some time near the place; and as Mary left it, he drew nigh and asked who she was. “Who would she be?” said the fisherman, gruffly, and evidently in no humor to converse. “A wife, or a daughter, perhaps?” asked the other again. “Neither one nor the other,” replied the fisherman. “It is Miss Mary, sir,--Miss Martin,--God bless her!” broke in the other; “one that never deserts the poor, living or dead. Musha! but she's what keeps despair out of many a heart!” “And has she come all this way alone?” asked he.