“What! saw a ghost? Nonsense.”
“Yis, sur; a ginewine sperit. Ye know there’s a big sinsation ’bout that Moreland gurril. They say she mates a sthranger ivery night, out there where masther Russell’s grave is. (Wirra! wirra! phat good masthers they were, to be sure—Russell an’ the doctor!) Well, me curiosity got the upper hand iv me, Jamie, an’ I thought I’d thry an’ git a glimpse iv the sthranger that iverybody was talkin’ about. So last avenin’ I went out there in the woods all alone. I hid mesilf in the bushes, an’ while I was layin’ there, phat d’ yeez think come along? The ghost iv Russell Trafford!”
Jim McCabe closed his white lips tightly over his teeth, with a mighty effort to control himself. This conclusion of Mike Terry’s recital was just what he had expected, but it was none the less startling for that fact. Up to this time he had thought it possible that he was laboring under a mysterious illusion, but, now that another had seen the same thing, every doubt fled.
“You positively saw this?” he said to Mike.
“Yis,” said Mike, “an’ I was dridfully scairt.”
“Was the ‘ghost,’ as you call it, alone?”
“Entirely alone; an’ I was scairt half out iv me wits.”
“Did nobody join him there?”
“Faith! I didn’t wait to see. I took to me heels like a strake iv gr’ased lightin’. Musha! musha! I niver was so scairt before.”