AT THE RIVER'S EDGE 9 



" There was a Priest that was a relation of me 

 own," continued Anastasia, rising to the surface of 

 her thoughts again, in the manner that always 

 suggested the rhythmic reappearance of a porpoise 

 in a summer swell, " and he was telling me of a 

 woman out near his own place, and she had a daughter 

 that married and lived with her in the house, herself 

 and the husband, and she got 'great annoyance with 

 them, and they took the land from her. ' Well,' 

 says she to the husband, ' when I die I'll rise out of 

 the grave to punish you for what ye done; ' and it 

 wasn't long after till she died. I dare say they had 

 too much whisky taken, and maybe they didn't 

 bury her the right way : ye wouldn't know, indeed, 

 but in any case the Priest went taking a walk for 

 himself shortly after, and he went around the grave- 

 yard, the way he'd have a quiet place to be reading 

 his exercises. Wliatever he seen in it he wouldn't 

 all out say, but ' I seen plenty,' says he, and sure the 

 coffin was there, and it above the ground, and no 

 doubt at all but he seen plenty besides that. The 

 man then that married the daughter went out, and 

 he buried the coffin, and he got a pain in his finger, 

 and he burying it, and the pain didn't leave him till 

 he died in the course of a few weeks. The daughter 

 was in a bad way too, after he dying; sure she got 

 fits, and she had them always till she went to a sus- 

 pinded Priest that lived behind Galway, and he cured 

 her. Sure thim has the power of God, whether they're 

 suspinded or no." 



I asked her presently if she had heard of a Priest, 

 renowned for his preaching, who had lived in the 

 village forty years before. 



" I did, to be sure, though I wasn't only a young 

 little girl the same time. He was a great Priest, and 

 after he died, it's what the people said, he went 



