"There's worse sarmints nor that, I can tell you," rejoined Larry, who took up the old song again-- "'A pipe it larns us all this thing-- 'T is fair without and foul within, Just like a sowl begrim'd with sin. Think o' this when you're smoking tiba-akky!'" Larry puffed away silently for a few minutes, and when Oonah had placed a few sods of turf round the pot in an upright position, that the flame might curl upward round them, and so hasten the boiling, she drew a stool near the fire, and asked Larry to explain about the fright. "Why I was coming up by the cross-road there, when what should I see but a ghost----" "A ghost!!!" exclaimed the widow and Oonah, with suppressed voices and distended mouth and eyes. "To all appearance," said Larry; "but it was only a thing was stuck in the hedge to freken whoever was passin' by; and as I kem up to it there was a groan, so I started, and looked at it for a minit, or thereaway; but I seen what it was, and threwn a stone at it, for fear I'd be mistaken: and I heer'd tittherin' inside the hedge, and then I knew 't was only devilment of some one." "And what was it?" asked Oonah. "'T was a horse's head, in throth, with an owld hat on the top of it, and two buck-briars stuck out at each side, and some rags hanging on them, and an owld breeches shakin' undher the head; 't was just altogether like a long pale-faced man, with high shouldhers and no body, and very long arms and short legs:--faith, it frightened me at first." "And no wondher," said Oonah. "Dear, but I think I'd lose my life if I seen the like?" "But sure," said the widow, "wouldn't you know that ghosts never appears by day?" "Ay, but I hadn't time to think o' that, bein' taken short wid the fright--more betoken, 't was the place the murdher happened in long ago." "Sure enough," said the widow. "God betune us and harm!" and she marked herself with the sign of the cross as she spoke; "and a terrible murdher it was," added she. "How was it?" inquired Oonah, drawing her seat closer to her aunt and Larry. "'T was a schoolmaster, dear, that was found dead on the road one mornin', with his head full of fractions," said the widow. "All in jommethry,"[3] said Larry. [3] Anything very badly broken is said by the Irish peasantry to be in "jommethry." "And some said he fell off the horse," said the widow. "And more say the horse fell on him," said Larry. "And again, there was some said the horse kicked him in the head," said the widow. "And there was talk of shoe-aside," said Larry. "The horse's shoe was it?" asked Oonah. "No, _alanna_," said Larry; "shoe-aside is Latin for cutting your throat." "But he didn't cut his throat," said the widow. "But sure it's all one whether he done it wid a razhir on his throat, or a hammer on his head; it's shoe-aside all the same." "But there was no hammer found, was there?" said the widow.