Now, it so happened that the house nearest the spot where he lay was
inhabited by a man named Daly, I think--but of the name I am not
certain--who was a herd or care-taker to Dr. Porter, then Bishop of
Clogher. The situation of this house was the most lonely and
desolate-looking that could be imagined. It was at least two miles
distant from any human habitation, being surrounded by one wide and
dreary waste of dark moor. By this house lay the route of those who
had found the corpse, and I believe the door of it was borrowed for
the purpose of conveying it home. Be this as it may, the family
witnessed the melancholy procession as it passed slowly through the
mountains, and when the place and circumstances are all considered, we
may admit that to ignorant and superstitious people, whose minds, even
upon ordinary occasions, were strongly affected by such matters, it
was a sight calculated to leave behind it a deep, if not a terrible
impression. Time soon proved that it did so.
An incident is said to have occurred at the funeral in fine keeping with
the wild spirit of the whole melancholy event. When the procession had
advanced to a place called Mullaghtinny, a large dark-coloured hare,
which was instantly recognised, by those who had been out with him on
the hills, as the identical one that led him to his fate, is said to
have crossed the roads about twenty yards or so before the coffin. The
story goes, that a man struck it on the side with a stone, and that the
blow, which would have killed any ordinary hare, not only did it no
injury, but occasioned a sound to proceed from the body resembling the
hollow one emitted by an empty barrel when struck.
In the meantime the interment took place, and the sensation began,
like every other, to die away in the natural progress of time, when,
behold, a report ran abroad like wild-fire that, to use the language
of the people, "Frank M'Kenna was _appearing_!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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