e rushed into
the priest's dining-room.

"'O, yer riverince, he's come back!' was all that the boy could find
breath to say for a moment; and Peter, who was rather irascible, took up
the discourse at once.

"'It's yourself that's come back in a fine plight, you graceless,
rioting, fighting, thaving young scullion. Whose cottage have ye been
skylarkin' round now? And where's the pig ye was sint for, at all, at
all?'

"'Peace, Pether, and let me discoorse him. Don't ye know that when I
sent ye for the dues of the church, ye was engaged in its sarvice,--in
holy ordhers, as it were? And how comes it, then, that you come back
without the pig, and looking as frighted as if Matthew Collins himself
had come back?'

"'And so he has masther, dear,' said the poor boy. 'O, _wirra_, _wirra_,
but afther this night I'll never be out mylone again. I shall always
think that I see him forninst me, as I met him beyant, the night.'

"'Met Matthew Collins? The gossoon's crazy,' said the priest.

"'The young devil is lying, more likely. The dead don't come back to
frighten honest folk, who want only their own,' said Peter, scornfully.

"'Now, Costigan, go back at wanst, and fetch the pig,' said Father
Mulcahy, firmly, but kindly. 'Ye'll be ready enough to ate him this
winther.'

"'O, masther, don't send me again! Ate that pig? An' if the pope himself
said grace, I'd sooner starve than ate a collop of the crater. Why,
either his sperit, or the devil in his shape, kapes watch over it; and
all the money in Dublin wouldn't timpt me there agin after dark.'

"'Well, sir,' said Peter, savagely, 'the boy's frikened at somethin',
that's certin'; and we shan't get the crather up here the night at all,
unless it's done soon. It's only a stip just, and I'll go and get the
pig, and find out what frighted the lad--a loose horse or cow, I'll be
bound.'

"Accordingly, Peter set off on his errand, accompanied by Costigan, who
went only on condition that he should not enter the barn, and only
consented to go at all under threat of a tremendous thrashing if he
refused.

"Scarcely an hour, therefore, had elapsed before Matthew was again
awakened from sleep by the intrusion of a second midnight visitor.

"'Where is the baste, any way?' asked the man, in gruff, angry tones.

"'He's right at the ind of the haggard, in the right hand corner,'
tremulously answered a boyish voice from the distance of a few rods.

"'Faith, but the villains is intent