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
to others."

"Well, there was things said--quare things, surely," she answered, as it
seemed, with some reluctance. "And why would not there? Sure was it not
up in that same room he slept for more than twenty years? and was it not
in the _alcove_ he got the rope ready that done his own business at
last, the way he done many a betther man's in his lifetime?--and was not
the body lying in the same bed after death, and put in the coffin there,
too, and carried out to his grave from it in Pether's churchyard, after
the coroner was done? But there was quare stories--my mother has them
all--about how one Nicholas Spaight got into trouble on the head of it."

"And what did they say of this Nicholas Spaight?" I asked.

"Oh, for that matther, it's soon told," she answered.

And she certainly did relate a very strange story, which so piqued my
curiosity, that I took occasion to visit the ancient lady, her mother,
from whom I learned many very curious particulars. Indeed, I am tempted
to tell the tale, but my fingers are weary, and I must defer it. But if
you wish to hear it another time, I shall do my best.

When we had heard the strange tale I have _not_ told you, we put one or
two further questions to her about the alleged spectral visitations, to
which the house had, ever since the death of the wicked old Judge, been
subjected.

"No one ever had luck in it," she told us. "There was always cross
accidents, sudden deaths, and short times in it. The first that tuck, it
was a family--I forget their name--but at any rate there was two young
ladies and their papa. He was about sixty, and a stout healthy gentleman
as you'd wish to see at that age. Well, he slept in that unlucky back
bedroom; and, God between us an'