pect
him home until a late hour. He left the wake, however, earlier than he
had proposed to do, for he found it a rather dull affair, and was on
his way home when, to his astonishment, or rather to his horror, he saw
Harry Woodward--also on his way home--in close conversation with
the supernatural being so well known by description as the
_Shan-dhinne-dhuv_; or Black Spectre. Now, Barney was half cowardly and
half brave--that is to say, had he lived in an enlightened age he would
have felt little terror of supernatural appearances; but at the period
of our story such was the predominance of a belief in ghosts, fairies,
evil spirits, and witches, that he should have been either less or more
than man could he have shaken off the prevailing superstitions, and the
gross credulity of the times in which he lived. As it was, he knew not
what to think. He remembered the character which had been whispered
abroad about Harry Woodward, and of his intercourse with supernatural
beings--he was known to possess the Evil Eye; and it was generally
understood that those who happened to be endowed with that accursed gift
were aided in the exercises of it by the powers of darkness and of evil.
What, then, was he to do? There probably was an opportunity of solving
the mystery which hung around the midnight motions of Woodward. If there
was a spirit before him, there was also a human being, in living flesh
and blood--an acquaintance, too--an individual whom he personally knew,
ready to sustain him, and afford, if necessary, that protection which,
under such peculiar circumstances, one fellow-creature has a right to
expect from another. Now Barney's way home led him necessarily--and a
painful necessity it was--near the Haunted House; and he observed that
the place where they stood, for they had ceased walking, was about fifty
yards above that much dreaded mansion. He resolved, however, to make
the plunge and advance, but deemed it only good manners to give some
intimation of his approach. He was now within about twenty yards from
them, and made an attempt at a comic song, which, however, quivered off
into as dismal and cowardly a ditty as ever proceeded from human lips.
Harry and the Spectre, both startled by the voice, turned round
to observe his approach, when, to his utter consternation, the
Shan-dhinne-dhuv sank, as it were, into the earth and disappeared. The
hair rose upon Barney's head, and when Woodward called out:

"Who comes there?"