“I suppose you don’t remember Lord Mulgrave coming here?” ventured Mr. Usher, who had risen, and, with his back to Mrs. Grogan, was searching for his stick.
“And troth an’ I do, and why wouldn’t I? I remember him well,” she rejoined, in her whinging voice. “I met him in the woods one day, and he gave me a great salute. Such a lovely, tall, fine gentleman! I never seen her ladyship; she never stirred out much. It was at Lota she died. Oh, but she made the lovely corpse!”
“Indeed!” said Miss Usher.
“Yes, that was an awful affair, and unexpected. They do say”—lowering her voice almost to a whisper—“she walks! Anyway, no one will go near the place after dark.”
“Surely you don’t believe that?” protested the lady.
“Well, ma’am, I’ve seen and heard many a quare tale in me time, and I don’t rightly know what to believe and what not to believe; but it would be more reasonable-like if she’d stop with her own folk, and haunt them, instead of scaring poor Irish people, as are black strangers.”
“Really, Emily, it’s six o’clock,” said her brother, suddenly looking at his watch. “We must not intrude on Mrs. Grogan any longer. You see it has quite cleared up now”; and he made for the door.
Miss Usher, an intelligent woman, who wrote a little, and was particularly anxious to study the Irish peasant, and interiors, would gladly have thrashed out with Mrs. Grogan the subject of ghosts, warnings, and Banshees; but her brother was already at the gate. Should she offer payment? She put her hand to her steel bag, and looked interrogatively at her hostess, but read an invincible “no” in those little twinkling greenish eyes.
“Thank you very much. Please say good-bye to your niece for us.”
“Aye, she’ll be sorry to miss ye; but she is mighty taken up with her mother. She’s a real, good decent girl, for all her funny ways—wan that always satisfies ye, and me sister cannot spare her out of her sight—that is when she’s in her right senses. Well, good-bye, my lady, good-bye. Mind the gander; he’s a bit wicked to strangers”; and she curtseyed her out.