The Ned M'Keown Stories. William Carleton

      “That was long afore my time,” said the poacher; “but I know that the rabbit-burrow between that and Jack Appleden's garden will soon be run out.”

      “Your time!” responded Shane Fadh, with contempt; “ay, and your father's afore you: my father doesn't remimber more nor seeing his funeral, and a merry one it was; for my grandfather, and some of them that had a respect for the family and his forbarers, if they hadn't it for himself, made up as much money among them as berried him dacently any how—ay, and gave him a rousin' wake into the bargain, with lashins of whiskey, stout beer, and ale; for in them times—God be with them every farmer brewed his own ale and beer;—more betoken, that one pint of it was worth a keg of this wash of yours, Ned.”

      “Wasn't it he that used to appear?” inquired M'Roarkin.

      “Sure enough he did, Tom.”

      “Lord save us,” said Nancy, “what could trouble him, I dunna?”

      “Why,” continued Shane Fadh, “some said one thing, and some another; but the upshot of it was this: when the last of the Grameses sould the estate, castle, and all, it seems he didn't resave all the purchase money; so, afther he had spint what he got, he applied to the purchaser for the remainder—him that the Mountjoy family bought it from; but it seems he didn't draw up writings, or sell it according to law, so that the thief o' the world baffled him from day to day, and wouldn't give him a penny—bekase he knew, the blaggard, that the Square was then as poor as a church mouse, and hadn't money enough to thry it at law with him; but the Square was always a simple asy-going man. One day he went to this fellow, riding on an ould garran, with a shoe loose—the only baste he had in the world—and axed him, for God's sake, to give him of what he owed him, if it was ever so little; 'for,' says he, 'I huve not as much money betune me and death as will get a set of shoes for my horse.'”

      “'Well,' says the nager, 'if-you're not able to keep your horse shod, I would jist recommend you to sell him, and thin his shoes won't cost you any thing,' says he.

      “The ould Square went away with tears in his eyes—for he loved the poor brute, bekase they wor the two last branches of the ould stock.”

      “Why,” inquired M'Kinley, in his small squeaking voice, “was the horse related to the family?”

      “I didn't say he was related to the fam——

      “Get out, you shingaun!” (* Fairy-like, or connected to the fairies) returned the old man, perceiving by the laugh that now went round, the sly tendency of the question—“no, nor to your family either, for he had nothing of the ass in him—eh? will you put that in your pocket, my little skinadhre (* A thin, fleshless, stunted person.)—ha! ha! ha!”

      The laugh was now turned against M'Kinley.

      Shane Fadh proceeded: “The ould Square, as I was tellin yez, cried to find himself an' the poor baste so dissolute; but when he had gone a bit from the fellow, he comes back to the vagabone—'Now,' says he, 'mind my words—if you happen to live afther me, you need never expect a night's pace; for I here make a serous an' solemn vow, that as long as my property's in your possession, or in any of your seed, breed, or gineration's, I'll never give over hauntin' you an' them, till you'll rue to the back-bone your dishonesty an' chathery to me an' this poor baste, that hasn't a shoe to his foot.'

      “'Well,' says the nager, 'I'll take chance of that, any way.'”

      “I'm tould, Shane,” observed the poacher, “that the Square was a fine man in his time, that wouldn't put up with sich treatment from anybody.”

      “Ay, but he was ould now,” Shane replied, “and too wakely to fight.—A fine man, Bill!—he was the finest man, 'cepting ould Square Storey, that ever was in this counthry. I hard my granfather often say that he was six feet four, and made in proportion—a handsome, black-a-vis'd man, with great dark whiskers. Well! he spent money like sklates, and so he died miserable—but had a merry birrel, as I said.”

      “But,” inquired Nancy, “did he ever appear to the rogue that chated him?”

      “Every night in the year, Nancy, exceptin' Sundays; and what was more, the horse along with him—for he used to come ridin' at midnight upon the same garran; and it was no matther what place or company the other 'ud be in, the ould Square would come reglarly, and crave him for what he owed him.”

      “So it appears that horses have sowls,” observed M'Roarkin, philosophically, giving, at the same time, a cynical chuckle at the sarcasm contained in his own conceit.

      “Whether they have sowls or bodies,” replied the narrator, “what I'm tellin' you is truth; every night in the year the ould chap would come for what was indue him; find as the two went along, the noise of the loose shoe upon the horse would be hard rattlin', and seen knockin' the fire out of the stones, by the neighbors and the thief that chated him, even before the Square would appeal at all at all.”

      “Oh, wurrah!” exclaimed Nancy, shuddering with terror. “I wouldn't take anything and be out now on the Drumfarrar road*, and nobody with me but myself.”

      *A lonely mountain-road, said to have been haunted. It is on

       this road that the coffin scenes mentioned in the Party

       fight and Funeral is laid.

      “I think if you wor,” said M'Kinley, “the light weights and short measures would be comin' acrass your conscience.”

      “No, in troth, Alick, wouldn't they; but may be if you wor, the promise you broke to Sally Mitchell might trouble you a bit: at any rate, I've a prayer, and if I only repated it wanst, I mightn't be afeard of all the divils in hell.”

      “Throth, but it's worth havin', Nancy: where did you get it?” asked M'Kinley.

      “Hould your wicked tongue, you thief of a heretic,” said Nancy, laughing, “when will you larn anything that's good? I got it from one that wouldn't have it if it wasn't good—Darby M'Murt, the pilgrim, since you must know.”

      “Whisht!” said Frayne: “upon my word, I blieve the old Square's comin' to pay tis a visit; does any of yez hear a horse trottin' with a shoe loose?”

      “I sartinly hear it,” observed Andy Morrow.

      “And I,” said Ned himself.

      There was now a general pause, and in the silence a horse, proceeding from the moors in the direction of the house, was distinctly heard; and nothing could be less problematical than that one of his shoes was loose.

      “Boys, take care of yourselves,” said Shane Fadh, “if the Square comes, he won't be a pleasant customer—he was a terrible fellow in his day: I'll hould goold to silver that he'll have the smell of brimstone about him.”

      “Nancy, where's your prayer now?” said M'Kinley, with a grin: “I think you had betther out with it, and thry if it keeps this old brimstone Square on the wrong side of the house.”

      “Behave yourself, Alick; it's a shame for you to be sich a hardened crathur: upon my sannies, I blieve your afeard of neither God nor the divil—the Lord purtect and guard us from the dirty baste!”

      “You