Three young girls of the party had cried
until their faces were swollen out of shape. The crowd outside wept and
wailed; some clasped their hands over their heads with an upward look to
heaven, some pressed them on their hearts, some rocked and moaned, some
prayed aloud - not set prayers, but impromptu utterances wrung out by
grief. The agony was so infectious that before I knew what I was about I
was crying for sympathy.
I was not to say sorry for them, for I knew the fine, healthy, strong
girls were likely to have a better chance to help their parents from the
other side of the water than here, and the young men might make their
mark in the new world and make something of themselves over there. Still
it was hard to witness the agony of their parting without tears.
When the carriage moved off, the cry "O Lord!" with which the passengers
started to their feet and the relatives outside flung up their hands,
was the most affecting sound I ever heard. It was a wail as if every
heart-string was torn. A countryman explained to me that the Irish were
a people that wept tears out of their hearts till they wept their hearts
away. By the conversation of the emigrants, I found that one girl had
turned back. "She failed on us, my lady," said her comrade.
