262 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



flew upstairs, unlocked the door and dashed in. 

 There was no hare there now. The windows were 

 shut ; they poked up the chimney, but never saw 

 her again. Whether Jim Conlon let her out surrep- 

 titiously, whether she went up the chimney, no 

 one will ever know. But be all that explained 

 she was supposed to be seen so often that the 

 window was bricked up and the room was called 

 the Hare room for all time. As you pass the place 

 in the train from Limerick to Ennis, just after 

 Ardsollus, you can see the old house, empty and 

 falling into ruin now, with the bricked-up window 

 on the top story. And certainly it may have been 

 rats, but something used to patter up and down 

 on that floor all night long. 



There are Banshees in variety. One is a red- 

 headed woman who lifts up the windows of the 

 lower rooms and pokes her head in just before the 

 death of one of the house. Another is a little 

 crooked old woman who walks across the lawn. 

 These are Banshees of high standing, haunting 

 very well-known Irish families. 



The most curious of all diiG, foxes, at a big place 

 in Kildare ; they come in droves before one of 

 the house dies. Foxes are always there, but at this 

 time they multiply too strangely. Foxes that know 

 no fear, but come close to the house itself and 

 stand watching on the lawn. 



" God help us, thim is not right," as Cuthbert 

 would say. You may not get away from curses 



