H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ Kilgobbin Castle was attacked by 'armed bands'—at least, that's the name Sloan's 'History of Galway' gives them—on Christmas Eve, in the rebellion year of '98. Feelan was the blind piper, whose name is known even still amongst the common people, and the expression 'You'll be dancin' to Feelan's tune' means that you will be hanged, simply because a man hanged without a drop, after the custom of the old days, seemed to dance in the air, and Feelan used to attend executions and play his pipes for the fun of the thing. ”

“ Hard on the shout came the sound of men running, and, as if evoked from the darkness by the sound, came the figures of the runners—three ruffianly-looking men with long poles across their shoulders, breathing so hard that the sound came like the pumping of an ill-fitting saddle on a trotting horse, and passing so close that the watcher could almost have touched the nearest of them. ”

“ You see, your mind was fresh to the country. It had been put en rapport with the past by those stories Rafferty, the car driver, had told you, and you were knocked out of consciousness at the very moment of the anniversary of the attack on Kilgobbin. It's all as plain as day; and if I were you, I'd go right back to Galway and make it up with the Beamishes. They'll understand, if you tell them what I say."
I said a good deal more, but I might just as well have talked to the man in the moon. Warburton was one of the people who refuse to believe in the supernatural ”

“ Norah had already cooled off on the business, for there is nothing that kills love like madness, and a thick-skinned inspector of police managed the rest of the matter in so business-like a way that two days later Warburton, in a fury, left for Dublin, where I met him at the Shelbourne Hotel. ”

“ I was an hour and a half tryin' to start her, turnin' the crank and turnin' the crank, till all at once she begins to buzz. In I gets, and off we goes. She goes fasther and fasther, and stop her I couldn't. All me job was cut out to steer her. We went through Cloyne at a hundred and tin miles an hour, the women shoutin' murder, and the pigs an' dogs scutterin' out of the road like chaff, an' the next thing I remimber was wakin' up in the cottage hospital. They tould me I'd met a steam-roller."
"And what became of the car?" asked Warburton.
"Faith, I duuno," said Rafferty. ”

“ A man like that is easily traced by his calling."
"Faith, yes," said the distracted Sir Michael, "we might be able to catch that chap. But I'll tell you now, I wouldn't be taking this thing too much to heart. You see, it was Christmas Eve, and the boys may have been only doing it for a diversion. Between you and me, it'd be just as well to let it blow over. I don't bear any grudge against them."
"Yes, but I do," said Warburton. "I believe it was they that upset the car ”