I can’t tell why; maybe the drop of drink I took got into my head. Well, I was just jogging on across the common; the rain beating hard in my face, and my clothes pasted to me with the wet; notwithstanding, I was singing to myself a verse of an old song, to lighten the road, when I heard suddenly a noise near me, like a man sneezing. I stopped and listened,—in fact, it was impossible to see your hand, the night was so dark—but I could hear nothing; the thought then came over me, maybe it’s something ‘not good,’ for there were very ugly stories going about what the priests used to do formerly in these meadows; and bones were often found in different parts of them. Just as I was thinking this, another voice came nearer than the last; it might be only a sneeze, after all; but in real earnest it was mighty like a groan. ‘The Lord be about us,’ I said to myself, ‘what’s this?—have ye the pass?’ I cried out, ‘have ye the pass? or what brings ye walking here, in nomine patri?’ for I was so confused whether it was a ‘sperit’ or not, I was going to address him in Latin—there’s nothing equal to the dead languages to lay a ghost, every body knows. Faith the moment I said these words he gave another groan, deeper and more melancholy like than before. ‘If it’s uneasy ye are,’ says I, ‘for any neglect of your friends,’ for I thought he might be in purgatory longer than he thought convenient, ‘tell me what you wish, and go home peaceably out of the rain, for this weather can do no good to living or dead; go home,’ said I, ‘and, if it’s masses ye’d like, I’ll give you a day’s pay myself, rather than you should fret yourself this way.’ The words were not well out of my mouth, when he came so near me that the sigh he gave went right through both my ears; ‘the Lord be merciful to me,’ said I, trembling. ‘Amen,’ says he, ‘whether you’re joking or not.’ The moment he said that my mind was relieved, for I knew it was not a sperit, and I began to laugh heartily at my mistake; ‘and who are ye at all?’ said I, ‘that’s roving about, at this hour of the night, ye can’t be Father Luke, for I left him asleep on the carpet before I quitted the college, and faith, my friend, if you hadn’t the taste for divarsion ye would not be out now?’ He coughed then so hard that I could not make out well what he said, but just perceived that he had lost his way on the common, and was a little disguised in liquor. ‘It’s a good man’s case,’ said I, ‘to take a little too much, though it’s what I don’t ever do myself; so, take a hold of my hand, and I’ll see you safe.’ I stretched out my hand, and got him, not by the arm, as I hoped, but by the hair of the head, for he was all dripping with wet, and had lost his hat. ‘Well, you’ll not be better of this night’s excursion,’ thought I, ‘if ye are liable to the rheumatism; and, now, whereabouts do you live, my friend, for I’ll see you safe, before I leave you?’ What he said then I