THE O’BRIEN GHOST.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 26, 27 June 1891, Page 100

THE O’BRIEN GHOST.

When I came into this property I was away abroad, and it was some time before the agent wrote to tell me the house was ready for me. I did not know the country at all, and I had never seen the cliffs of Moher, which rise 700 feet above the Atlantic. The day I arrived I took a look at this house, and then walked to the cliff's with a priest with whom I was going to dine at Ennistymon. I was astonished and delighted at the spectacle, the ocean rolling in from the west, ‘ The next parish church in America,’ as his reverence said. I had always heard there was some tradition about the Hag’s Head and my family—how some old lady who was walking near the cliff was whisked into the sea by a sudden puff' of wind. And there are such puffs ! And they’re very dangerous ! Anyway the grandson succeeded, and they say the ghost of the old woman began to haunt the cliffs.

Well, as I was driving home I thought that as it was a beautiful moonlight night, and a good breeze was blowing from the west, I would take a look at the breakers ; they were roaring like artillery. So I got out of the gig and told the boy to go home and bid a servant wait up for me. I

struck across the sward straight for the Hag's Head. I had got within seventy or eighty yards of it when I saw on the cliff a white figure. It was moving ; alive and no mistake. At first I thought it was a sheep, but, getting nearer, I perceived that it was a woman in a white dress, with a white cap on her head. Then I remembered that there was some talk at dinner of a lunatic girl who had escaped out of the asylum at Ennistymon. I made sure that it was she, and I thought I had just arrived in time to save her life, poor creature ! My plain was to creep quietly behind her, seize her in my arms, drag her as far as I could from the edge, then secure her and haul her somehow to the road.

I had got close, and was just about to lay hold of her, when ‘ the thing ’ turned on me such a face as no human being ever had—a death’s head, with eyes glaring out of the sockets, through tangled masses of snow-white hair ! In an instant, with a screech that rang through my brain, * the thing ’ fell or threw itself over the face of the cliff. It was some seconds before I recovered the shock and horror. Then tremblingly I crept on my hands and knees to the verge of the cliff. I looked down on the raging sea. As I was peering down over the Hag’s Head I saw in the moonlight some white object coming up the face of the cliff' straight towards me ! I am not superstitious or a coward. I tried to persuade myself it was a seal or a great sea-gull, but presently arms and hands were visible—it was crawling hand over hand up the cliff'. I jumped to my feet and ran for my life towards my house. As I ran the yell the thing gave when it disappeared over the cliff was repeated. Looking back there was the dreadful sight. It came over the green meadow in pursuit of me, came nearer, nearer, not 200 yards behind. I bounded like a deer up the avenue, and the door was opened by my man. Again the fearful sound close at hand ‘Shut! shut the door! Do you hear that?’ The man heard nothing. I went to my room, looked at my face in the glass ; it was pale, but it was not that of a madman. The windows of my bedroom looked on a large garden ; the blinds were drawn and the light of the moon fell through them. I was nearly undressed, when a shadow was thrown on the counterpane of the bed from one of the windows. There was someone on the sill ! The scream was repeated. A brace of double-barrel pistols lay on the table by my pillow. I fired the barrels, bang ! bang I bang ! at the

window as fast as I eould pull the trigger. I ran downstairs to the hall. We called up every soulin the house, searched every inch of the garden—there was a soft soil under my window—not a trace of footstep nor a ladder ! I had my horse saddled at once, and rode to Ennistymon and knocked up the priest. The first question I asked his astonished reverence was, ‘ Tell me, was I drunk when I left you ?’ ‘ No, you were as sober as you are now, Mr O’Brien !’ And then I told him my story. * I never,’ said his reverence, ‘ heard ot anyone but the O’Briens hearing or seeing her, and they have her all to themselves. I can’t make it out!’