Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/367

Rh she got to the cottage, she went by hopping swiftly. She was dressed in a short red petticoat, with a hood on her head, and he could see her feet clearly in the moonlight. She went on before him till she came to a sandpit on the left-hand side of the road where there is a well. She went in there, and as he drove past he heard a terrible yell.

"My brother was on horseback one night on the same road and about the same hour. The mare he rode was accustomed to get a drink of water at a small stream which flows underneath the road. On coming to the stream she turned in at the accustomed spot, and while she was drinking, he heard a cry as if a number of women were mourning the dead. At the same moment he felt the mare start beneath him, and flinging up her head, she looked round. He was about one hundred yards from the tree where he had seen the woman. He said to himself, 'I wonder who is dead in Shraheens,' a village on the side of the mountain from which the cry came, and was surprised he had not heard of the death. For a time then he thought nothing more of the cry, though he heard it continuously, and it seemed to be drawing nearer. He was a mile from Kiltebirn wood when he first heard it, and it went on, just like women caoining till he reached the wood. It appeared to proceed across the hill, coming towards him on the left. He now began to wonder if it were possible that anyone was to be buried at such an unusual hour. There was an old churchyard on his right about a mile off, across the Moy. He tried to bring the mare to a walk in order to listen better to the sound, but she would not be kept at a walk, and broke into a fast trot. By this time he could hear the cry very distinctly, just like a lot of women at a wake. As he rode by the wood he heard movements among the trees, and sounds as if sticks were being broken under the tread of feet. When near the middle of the wood, the cry came so close that he expected to see the funeral procession leave the wood and cross the road before