SUPERSTITIONS AND HAUNTINGS 263 



and superstitions over here. They are part of the 

 land. 



At Lord 's house near Dublin — I do not 



know if the present man keeps up the custom — 

 an extra place was always laid. A friend of mine 

 staying there asked why. 



It appeared that a beggar coming to ask for 

 charity was rudely refused and laid her curse on 



the Family, that if a sat down to eat without 



a place laid for any beggar who should come to 

 sit at, or closed the haU door during meals, so 

 surely should some misfortune fall on the family. 



Misfortunes did fall too thickly, until a man not 

 afraid of trying the remedy laid the place, and 

 had the door kept open, and up to fourteen years 

 ago or less it was still carried out. 



Priests' curses, the last words of the poor men 

 who were hanged in Cromwell's time are absolutely 

 believed and have worked out in strange ways. 



They hanged a young fellow at Mount Shannon 

 when the Fitzgibbons were mimic kings in their 

 big place, and never dreamt of misfortune coming 

 to them. 



" You think yourselves very fine now, Earls of 

 Clare," he said, solemnly as he watched the rope 

 which was to hang him put up, " but the d?y will 

 come shortly when the owls and the bats will fly 

 in and out of your windows and your family be 

 scattered and dead." 



And sic transit. . . . Now there are no Lord Clares, 



