I was ready to faint from sheer terror. I was only thirteen years old then, and I remember every particular as if it had happened this hour.
The figure passed through the gap at the far corner of the field, and there I lost sight of it. I had hardly strength to walk home, and was so nervous, and ultimately so ill, that for three weeks I was confined to the house, and could not bear to be alone for a moment. I never entered that field again, such was the horror with which from that moment every object in it was clothed. Even at this distance of time I should not like to pass through it.
This apparition I connected with a mysterious event; and, also, with a singular liability, that has for nearly eight years distinguished, or rather afflicted, our family. It is no fancy. Everybody in that part of the country knows all about it. Everybody connected what I had seen with it.
I will tell it all to you as well as I can.
When I was about fourteen years old—that is about a year after the sight I had seen in the lough field—we were one night expecting my father home from the fair of Killaloe. My mother sat up to welcome him home, and I with her, for I liked nothing better than such a vigil. My brothers and sisters, and the farm servants, except the men who were driving home the cattle from the fair, were asleep in their beds. My mother and I were sitting in the chimney corner chatting together, and watching my father’s supper, which was kept hot over the fire. We knew that he would return before the men who were driving home the cattle, for he was riding, and told us that he would only wait to see them fairly on the road, and then push homeward.
At length we heard his voice and the knocking of his loaded whip at the door, and my mother let him in. I don’t think I ever saw my father drunk, which is more than most men of my age, from the same part of the country, could say of theirs. But he could drink his glass of whisky as well as another, and he usually came home from fair or market a little merry and mellow, and with a jolly flush in his cheeks.
Tonight he looked sunken, pale and sad. He entered with the saddle and bridle in his hand, and he dropped them against the wall, near the door, and put his arms round his wife’s neck, and kissed her kindly.
“Welcome home, Meehal,” said she, kissing him heartily.
“God bless you, mavourneen,” he answered.
And hugging her again, he turned to me, who was plucking him by the hand, jealous of his notice. I was little, and light of my age, and he lifted me up in his arms, and kissed me, and my arms being about his neck, he said to my mother:
“Draw the bolt, acuishla.”
She did so, and setting me down very dejectedly, he walked to the fire and sat down on a stool, and stretched his feet toward the glowing turf, leaning with his hands on his knees.
“Rouse up, Mick, darlin’,” said my mother, who was growing anxious, “and tell me how did the cattle sell, and did everything go lucky at the fair, or is there anything wrong with the landlord, or what in the world is it that ails you, Mick, jewel?”
“Nothin’, Molly. The cows sould well, thank God, and there’s nothin’ fell out between me an’ the landlord, an’ everything’s the same way. There’s no fault to find anywhere.”
“Well, then, Mickey, since so it is, turn round to your hot supper, and ate it, and tell us is there anything new.”
“I got my supper, Molly, on the way, and I can’t ate a bit,” he answered.
“Got your supper on the way, an’ you knowin’ ’twas waiting for you at home, an’ your wife sittin’ up an’ all!” cried my mother, reproachfully.
“You’re takin’ a wrong meanin’ out of what I say,” said my father. “There’s something happened that leaves me that I can’t ate a mouthful, and I’ll not be dark with you, Molly, for, maybe, it ain’t very long I have to be here, an’ I’ll tell you what it was. It’s what I’ve seen, the white cat.”
“The Lord between us and harm!” exclaimed my mother, in a moment as pale and as chapfallen as my father; and then, trying to rally, with a laugh, she said: “Ha! ’tis only funnin’ me you are. Sure a white rabbit was snared a Sunday last, in Grady’s wood; an’ Teigue seen a big white rat in the haggard yesterday.”
“ ’Twas neither rat nor rabbit was in it. Don’t ye think but I’d know a rat or a rabbit from a big white cat, with green eyes as big as halfpennies, and its back riz up like a bridge, trottin’ on and across me, and ready, if I dar’ stop, to rub its sides against my shins, and maybe to make a jump and seize my throat, if that it’s a cat, at all, an’ not something worse?”
As he ended his description in a low tone, looking straight at the fire, my father drew his big hand across his forehead once or twice, his face being damp and shining with the moisture of fear, and he sighed, or rather groaned, heavily.
My mother had relapsed
