The hare started off at a brisk pace, squirting up the milk she had
sucked from her mouth and nostrils, and the dogs making after her
rapidly. Rachel Higgins's cabin appeared, through the grey of the
morning twilight, at a little distance; and it was evident that puss
seemed bent on gaining it, although she made a considerable circuit
through the fields in the rear. Bryan and his comrade, however, had
their thoughts, and made towards the cabin by the shortest route, and
had just arrived as the hare came up, panting and almost exhausted,
and the dogs at her very scut. She ran round the house, evidently
confused and disappointed at the presence of the men, but at length
made for the door. In the bottom of the door was a small, semicircular
aperture, resembling those cut in fowl-house doors for the ingress and
egress of poultry. To gain this hole, puss now made a last and
desperate effort, and had succeeded in forcing her head and shoulders
through it, when the foremost of the dogs made a spring and seized her
violently by the haunch. She uttered a loud and piercing scream, and
struggled desperately to free herself from his gripe, and at last
succeeded, but not until she left a piece of her rump in his teeth.
The men now burst open the door; a bright turf fire blazed on the
hearth, and the whole floor was streaming with blood. No hare,
however, could be found, and the men were more than ever convinced
that it was old Rachel, who had, by the assistance of some demon,
assumed the form of the hare, and they now determined to have her if
she were over the earth. They entered the bedroom, and heard some
smothered groaning, as if proceeding from some one in extreme agony.
They went to the corner of the room from whence the moans proceeded,
and there, beneath a bundle of freshly-cut rushes, found the form of
Rachel Higgins, writhing in the most excruciating agony, and almost
smothered in a pool of blood. The men were astounded; they addressed
the wretched old woman, but she either could not, or would not answer
them. Her wound still bled copiously; her tortures appeared to
increase, and it was evident that she was dying. The aroused family
thronged around her with cries and lamentations; she did not seem to
heed them, she got worse and worse, and her piercing yells fell
awfully on the ears of the bystanders. At length she expired, and her
corpse exhibited a most appalling spectacle, even before the spirit
had well departed.
Bryan and his friend returned home. The old hag had been previously
aware of the fate of Rachel Higgins, but it was not known by what
means she acquired her supernatural knowledge. She was delighted at
the issue of her mysterious operations. Bryan pressed her much to
accept of some remuneration for her services, but she utterly rejected
such proposals. She remained a few days at his house, and at length
took her leave and departed, no one knew whither.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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