The Woman in White

Having never enjoyed the undesirable privilege of a foregathering with an unearthly appearance, though in our youth we had passed, many many times, at the dead hour through haunted glounthaans (glens), and across the haunted fords of Ath-na-Capail,[1] Ochnanayear, Ochayolthachawn, and many other eery aths and thubbers (fords and wells), we yet can bring to mind many of the true narratives we have heard at rustic firesides.

Of those we are about to relate, we are as sure of the good faith of the tellers as of any ordinary truth or fact that has occurred to us, but are yet of opinion that, could all circumstances connected with the occurrences be ascertained, everything related might probably be referred to natural causes. The narratives are not classified: we give them as they occur to memory, vouching for the thorough sincerity of the original reciters.

THE WOMAN IN WHITE

Pat Gill, of the county of Kildare, was driving towards Dublin, with a load of country produce. He had made a comfortable seat for himself on the car, and had plenty of hay about him and under him. He was pleasantly employed thinking of nothing in particular, dozing and giving an eye to the proceedings of his beast. He was between the mill of Baltracy and the cross roads of Borraheen, when he was startled by the appearance of a woman dressed in long white clothes, crossing the fence, and advancing into the road. She came up to the horse, and walked on with him, close by his neck. The driver chucked the beast's head to the opposite side, for fear he should tread on her feet or long robes, but she still kept as close to him as before, and sometimes he thought he could see the lower part of the horse's fore leg through her dress. The matter had now become very serious. He could not keep his eyes off the apparition; and he felt his whole frame covered with a cold perspiration. He became bewildered, and could not determine either on going on or stopping. So, the horse, finding matters left to himself jogged on apparently unconscious of his fellow-wayfarer. The centre of the cross-roads of Borraheen is or was occupied by a patch of green turf; and when they came to its edge, the white figure stood still, while a portion of the shaft of the car on that side seemed to pass through her. Gill, observing this, drew the beast at once to the other side, crying in a voice made tremulous by terror, "By your leave, ma'am! " On went horse and car, the edges of the load preventing him from seeing the white form. Having advanced two or three yards, he looked back, fearing to see a mangled body on the road behind him, but he saw, instead, the white appearance standing in the centre of the plot of grass, her hand seeming to shade her eyes, as she looked earnestly after him. Terrified as he was, he never turned his gaze till a bend in the road cut off the view.

End of this Story

The neighbourhood of Borraheen, Baltracy, and Rathcoffey was blessed, or the contrary, in times past, by a fortune-teller and charm-concocter, Molly Anthony by name. So unedifying was her life and conversation, that the priest refused to have any religious services performed for her after death. She left a son, who had acquired some skill in curing cattle by herbs, and did not pretend to any supernatural gifts. A farmer, Pat Behan, at whose house he had remained about a fortnight, and who was well pleased with his performances, was passing near the green hills in his jaunting car, accompanied by Jack Anthony, the doctor, when, on a sudden, an old woman in a red cloak appeared to them between the bushes on the road-fence, and cried, "Jack, it's time for you to come." "Sir," said Jack to his patron, "will you excuse me for a minute, while I go to say a word to this neighbour of mine?" "Oh, to be sure!" Jack got on the fence, and passed through the bushes, but the farmer was surprised at not subsequently hearing the sound of his or her voice. He waited for about the space of a minute, and then bade his servant climb the fence, and see if Jack was about to return. The servant did as he was told, and the master observed him look along the inner side of the ditch, now to the left, and then to the right, and then straight before him, with a perplexed expression of face. The master sprung down, joined his servant, and found he had a long range of vision right and left, and up the sloping side of the green hill, and no bushes or rocks to afford concealment. Neither Jack nor the red-cloaked women were in view. It was months before the doctor presented himself before his patron, and even then his account of his disappearance was not consistent in all its parts. Our informant was acquainted with Pat Behan and Jack Anthony, and heard the former relate the adventure.

NOTES

[1] The first of these names is pronounced by the people round Castleboro, Och-na-goppal; the others are pronounced as here phonetically spelled. The English equivalents are—the "Ford of the Horse," the "Ford of the Evil Spirits," and the "Ford of the Naked Man."