278 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



fairy forths where the thorns hide mystery 

 beneath their prickly branches, and if the cow is 

 short, the fairies come to it in the night and say : 



''This day's Thursday, God betwixt us and harm." 



Some of the strangest stories in Ireland are 

 told of disappearances. They are firmly believed 

 in. He or she was took by the fairies — or worse, 

 by the Devil. 



There is an eerie tale told of a very old family, 

 one well known, not far from Kilkenny, and its 

 wicked heir. It is written, they tell me, in old 

 accounts of the family, and no explanation has 

 ever been forthcoming. 



This heir lived in the old hill fair days of drinking 

 and hard living. And even then shocked everyone 

 about him by his wildness. 



One day he fell iU, and was in his bed when a 

 ring came to the hall door. 



The butler opened it to admit a foreign-looking 

 man who asked for the eldest son. 



" 111 ? It did not matter, he would go upstairs." 



He went up the stairs, the butler remembered 

 afterwards that he did not ask to be shown the 

 way, and about ten minutes afterwards a piercing 

 shriek rang through the old house. 



It came from the sick boy's room. Everyone 

 who heard it ran up, to find the boy lying un- 

 conscious, with a look of terror stamped on his 

 white face. 



When he spoke it was to rave in fever but 



