'There was a woman I knew was very charitable to the poor; and she'd give them the full of her apron of bread, or of potatoes or anything she had. And she was only lately married; and one day, a poor woman came to the door with her children and she brought them to the fire, and warmed them, and gave them a drink of milk; and she sent out to the barn for a bag of potatoes for them. And the husband came in, and he said: "Kitty, if you go on this way, you won't leave much for ourselves." And she said: "He that gave us what we have, can give more." And the next day when they went out to the barn, it was full of potatoes—more than were ever in it before. And when she was dying, and her children about her, the priest said to her: "Mrs. Gallagher, it's in heaven you'll be at 12 o'clock to-morrow."'
But when death comes, it is not enough to have been charitable; and it is not right to touch the body or lay it out for a couple of hours; for the soul should be given time to fight for itself, and to go up to judgment. And sometimes it is not willing to go; for Mrs. Casey says:—
'The Saviour, one time, told St. Patrick to go and prepare a man that was going to die. And St. Patrick said: "I'd sooner not go; for I never yet saw the soul depart from the body." But then he went, and he prepared the man. And when he was lying there dead, he saw the soul go from the body; and three times it went to the door, and three times it came back and kissed the body. And St. Patrick asked the Saviour why it did that: and He said: "That soul was sorry to part from the body, because it had held it so clean and so honest."'
When the hill-people talk of 'the time of the war,' it is the war that once took place in heaven that is understood. And when 'Those' are spoken of, the fallen angels are understood, the cloud of witness, the whirling invisible host; and it is only to a stranger that an explanation need be given.
'They were in heaven once,' Mary Glyn says 'and heaven is the first place there was war; and they were all to be done away with; and it was St. Peter asked the Saviour to help them, when he saw Him going to empty the heavens. So He turned His hand like this; and the earth and the sky and the sea were full of them, and they are in every place, and you know that better than I do, because you read books. Resting they do be in the daytime, and going about at night. And their music is the finest you ever heard, like all the fifers, and all the instruments, and all the tunes of the world. I heard it sometimes myself, and there is no music in the world like it; but not all can hear it. Round the hill it comes, and you going in at the door. And they are quiet neighbours if you treat them well. God bless them, and bring them all to heaven.'
And then, having mentioned Monday (a spell against unseen listeners), and said, 'God bless the hearers, and the place it is told in'—and her niece, Mary Irwin, having said, 'God bless all we see, and those we don't see,' they tell—first one speaking and then the other—that: 'One night there were banabhs in the house; and there was a man coming to dig the potato-garden in the morning—and so late at night, Mary Glyn was making stirabout, and a cake to have ready for the breakfast of the banabhs and the man; and Mary's brother Micky was asleep within on the bed. And there came the sound of the grandest music you ever heard from beyond the stream, and it stopped there. And Micky awoke in the bed, and was afraid, and said: "Shut up the door and quench the light," and so we did.' 'It's likely,' Mary says, 'they wanted to come into the house, and they wouldn't when they saw me up and the lights about.' But one time when there were potatoes in the loft, Mary and her brothers were pelted with the potatoes when they sat down to supper. And Mary Irwin got a blow on the side of the face, from one of them, one night in the bed. 'And they have the hope of heaven, and God grant it to them.' 'And one day, there was a priest and his servant riding along the road, and there was a hurling of them going on in the field. And a man of them came out and stood in the road, and said to the priest: "Tell me this, for you know it, have we a chance of heaven?" "You have not," said the priest. ("God forgive him," says Mary Irwin, "a priest to say that!") And the man that was of them said: "Put your fingers in your ears, till you have travelled two miles of the road; for when I go back and tell what you are after telling me to the rest, the crying and the bawling and the roaring will be so great that, if you hear it, you'll never hear a noise again in this world." So they put their fingers then in their ears; but after a while the servant said to the priest: "Let me take out my fingers now." And the priest said: "Do not." And then the servant said again: "I think I might take one finger out." And the priest said: "Since you are so persevering, you may take it out." So he did, and the noise of the crying and the roaring and the bawling was so great, that he never had the use of that ear again.'
Old Mr. Saggarton confirms the story of the fall of the angels and their presence about us, but goes deeper into theology. 'The soul,' he says, 'was the breath of God, breathed into Adam, and it is the possession of God ever since. And I could never have believed there was so much power in the shadow of a soul, till I saw them one night hurling. They tempt us sometimes in dreams—may God forgive me for saying He would allow power to any to tempt to evil. And they would destroy the world but for the hope they have of being saved. Every Monday morning they think the day of judgment may be coming, and that they will see heaven.
'Half the world is with them. And when you see a blast of wind, and it comes sudden and carries the dust with it, you should say, "God bless them," and throw something after them. For how do you know but one of our own may be in it?
'There never was a funeral they were not at, walking after the other people. And you can see them if you know the way—that is, to take a green rush and to twist it into a ring, and to look through it. But if you do, you'll never have a stim of sight in the eye again.'