And Larry and Nora went down the boreen together.
DEATH BY MISADVENTURE.
“Superstitious?” Well, I confess I am a little. I would rather not sit down at table with twelve others, and I think that no really good host should expose his guest to such a predicament. I have, indeed, made one of thirteen at dinner on more than one occasion, and was not a penny the worse, nor, as far as I can recall, was anyone else. But all the same, I don’t like the number. And I would rather see two magpies than one any day, and I don’t like to hear the ‘tick’ of the death watch at night.
I would rather not pass a churchyard alone after dark, but then I don’t like churchyards even in the daytime, and would avoid them if I could. I was once induced to make one at a seance of Spiritualists, and sat for at least half an hour, with five or six others, round a table in the dark, vainly hoping for a glimpse of a spirit from the other world, or for a sound of the rapping, the system of telegraphy said to be employed by its denizens, but I neither saw nor heard anything.
The reader will gather from this that I am like nine out of ten of his acquaintances in matters of this kind. I am not a convinced sceptic as to supernatural visitations, and, on the other hand, I am not a believer in them. All I know is that I had never seen anything to bring me in touch, real or imaginary, with the other world until a certain night in the first days of the month of September, over twenty years ago, when I was staying at one of the most charming seaside resorts on the eastern coast of Ireland.
The weather was simply delightful. The breath of summer seemed still to linger in the leaves, almost as many as they are in June, and which had hardly begun to put on their autumn tints. The sea for days had been like a mill-pond. The tide glided in and out almost imperceptibly, and only in the still night could one hear its soft sighing voice.
I was lodged in a ‘furnished house’ close to the sea. My rooms were very bright, and offered splendid views of sea and mountain, and of the rich foliage that crowned the hills that rose up, gently sloping, almost from the strand.
The house was furnished after the fashion of many seaside houses let for the season, and idle during the winter months. The furniture was indifferent, but sufficient. But of this I had not taken much notice. I was easily satisfied, and moreover I spent most of my time out of doors. But there came a day when the sky was covered with black clouds, from which the rain poured down unceasingly, and the sea was hidden in a mist.