“And so, Mike, you never saw a ghost yourself?—that you acknowledge?”
“No, sir, I never saw a real ghost; but sure there’s many a thing I never saw; but Mrs. Moore, the housekeeper, seen two. And your grandfather that’s gone—the Lord be good to him!—used to walk once a year in Lurra Abbey; and sure you know the story about Tim Clinchy that was seen every Saturday night coming out of the cellar with a candle and a mug of wine and a pipe in his mouth, till Mr. Barry laid him. It cost his honor your uncle ten pounds in Masses to make him easy; not to speak of a new lock and two bolts on the cellar door.”
“I have heard all about that; but as you never yourself saw any of these things—”
“But sure my father did, and that’s the same any day. My father seen the greatest ghost that ever was seen in the county Cork, and spent the evening with him, that’s more.”
“Spent the evening with him!—what do you mean?”
“Just that, devil a more nor less. If your honor wasn’t so weak, and the story wasn’t a trying one, I’d like to tell it to you.”
“Out with it by all means, Mike; I am not disposed to sleep; and now that we are upon these matters, my curiosity is strongly excited by your worthy father’s experience.”
Thus encouraged, having trimmed the fire and reseated himself beside the blaze, Mike began; but as a ghost is no every-day personage in our history, I must give him a chapter to himself.