This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
FAMINE IN IRELAND
127

where those who had died by famine and pestilence were buried, like dogs, unshrouded and uncoffined, he was grateful to find a place to bury his "dead out of his sight." The corpse was borne away by a few boatmen across the channel; and Sara was conveyed to her long home. I saw Abraham early in December, 1847, and the bed which he made for Sara, on that bleak sea-shore. The turf wall was still unbroken; the smoke, where the fire had been made, had left its blackness; and a piece of turf, partly consumed, was lying by this hearth; the heath-bed had not been stirred, and I begged Mrs. S. to keep it from the inroad of cattle. A wall of stone should be built around that dwelling, and the traveler pointed to it, as a relic of the greatest interest.—A relic of Ireland's woes!

It is said that Sara, in her father's house, was "fair to look upon," and enjoyed in plenty the good things of this life; and, says Mrs. S., "when first I saw her the sun was shining in full strength upon her marble face; and so swollen its wrinkles were smoothed; her countenance was mild, her manner modest and pleasing, and she was an object of much admiration. She lay in that lowly bed in storm and sunshine, by night and by day, till the "good God," as she expressed it, "should plaise to take her away:" yet lowly as was her couch, lonely as was her wake, unostentatious as was her burial, few, in her condition, were honored with so good a one.

In the same vicinity was the bed of a little orphan girl, who had crept into a hole in the bank, and died one night, with no one to spread her heath-bed, or to