The Celtic Twilight | Page 6

own strength ebbing away,
as though it were sucked out of him. He turned and ran.
By the Hospital Lane goes the "Faeries Path." Every evening they
travel from the hill to the sea, from the sea to the hill. At the sea end of
their path stands a cottage. One night Mrs. Arbunathy, who lived there,
left her door open, as she was expecting her son. Her husband was
asleep by the fire; a tall man came in and sat beside him. After he had
been sitting there for a while, the woman said, "In the name of God,
who are you?" He got up and went out, saying, "Never leave the door
open at this hour, or evil may come to you." She woke her husband and
told him. "One of the good people has been with us," said he.
Probably the man braved Mrs. Stewart at Hillside Gate. When she lived
she was the wife of the Protestant clergyman. "Her ghost was never
known to harm any one," say the village people; "it is only doing a
penance upon the earth." Not far from Hillside Gate, where she haunted,
appeared for a short time a much more remarkable spirit. Its haunt was
the bogeen, a green lane leading from the western end of the village. I
quote its history at length: a typical village tragedy. In a cottage at the
village end of the bogeen lived a house-painter, Jim Montgomery, and
his wife. They had several children. He was a little dandy, and came of
a higher class than his neighbours. His wife was a very big woman. Her
husband, who had been expelled from the village choir for drink, gave
her a beating one day. Her sister heard of it, and came and took down

one of the window shutters--Montgomery was neat about everything,
and had shutters on the outside of every window--and beat him with it,
being big and strong like her sister. He threatened to prosecute her; she
answered that she would break every bone in his body if he did. She
never spoke to her sister again, because she had allowed herself to be
beaten by so small a man. Jim Montgomery grew worse and worse: his
wife soon began to have not enough to eat. She told no one, for she was
very proud. Often, too, she would have no fire on a cold night. If any
neighbours came in she would say she had let the fire out because she
was just going to bed. The people about often heard her husband
beating her, but she never told any one. She got very thin. At last one
Saturday there was no food in the house for herself and the children.
She could bear it no longer, and went to the priest and asked him for
some money. He gave her thirty shillings. Her husband met her, and
took the money, and beat her. On the following Monday she got very
W, and sent for a Mrs. Kelly. Mrs. Kelly, as soon as she saw her, said,
"My woman, you are dying," and sent for the priest and the doctor. She
died in an hour. After her death, as Montgomery neglected the children,
the landlord had them taken to the workhouse. A few nights after they
had gone, Mrs. Kelly was going home through the bogeen when the
ghost of Mrs. Montgomery appeared and followed her. It did not leave
her until she reached her own house. She told the priest, Father R, a
noted antiquarian, and could not get him to believe her. A few nights
afterwards Mrs. Kelly again met the spirit in the same place. She was in
too great terror to go the whole way, but stopped at a neighbour's
cottage midway, and asked them to let her in. They answered they were
going to bed. She cried out, "In the name of God let me in, or I will
break open the door." They opened, and so she escaped from the ghost.
Next day she told the priest again. This time he believed, and said it
would follow her until she spoke to it.
She met the spirit a third time in the bogeen. She asked what kept it
from its rest. The spirit said that its children must be taken from the
workhouse, for none of its relations were ever there before, and that
three masses were to be said for the repose of its soul. "If my husband
does not believe you," she said, "show him that," and touched Mrs.
Kelly's wrist with three fingers. The places where they touched swelled

up and blackened. She then vanished. For a time Montgomery would
not believe that his wife had appeared: "she would not show herself to
Mrs. Kelly,"