all? and was not it in the alcove they found the handles of the
skipping-rope cut off, and the knife where he was settling the cord, God
bless us, to hang himself with? It was his housekeeper's daughter owned
the rope, my mother often told me, and the child never throve after, and
used to be starting up out of her sleep, and screeching in the night
time, wid dhrames and frights that cum an her; and they said how it was
the speerit of the ould Judge that was tormentin' her; and she used to
be roaring and yelling out to hould back the big ould fellow with the
crooked neck; and then she'd screech 'Oh, the master! the master! he's
stampin' at me, and beckoning to me! Mother, darling, don't let me go!'
And so the poor crathure died at last, and the docthers said it was
wather on the brain, for it was all they could say."

"How long ago was all this?" I asked.

"Oh, then, how would I know?" she answered. "But it must be a wondherful
long time ago, for the housekeeper was an ould woman, with a pipe in her
mouth, and not a tooth left, and better nor eighty years ould when my
mother was first married; and they said she was a rale buxom,
fine-dressed woman when the ould Judge come to his end; an', indeed, my
mother's not far from eighty years ould herself this day; and what made
it worse for the unnatural ould villain, God rest his soul, to frighten
the little girl out of the world the way he did, was what was mostly
thought and believed by every one. My mother says how the poor little
crathure was his own child; for he was by all accounts an ould villain
every way, an' the hangin'est judge that ever was known in Ireland's
ground."

"From what you said about the danger of sleeping in that bedroom," said
I, "I suppose there were stories about the ghost having appeared there