Grady's wood; an' Teigne seen a big white
rat, in the haggard yesterday."

"'Twas neither rat nor rabbit was in it.
Don't ye think but I'd know a rat or a
rabbit from a big white cat, with green
eyes as big as halfpennies, and its back riz
up like a bridge, trottin' on and across me,
and ready, if I dar' stop, to rub its sides
along my shins, and maybe to make a jump
and seize my throat, if that it's a cat, at
all, an' not something worse?"

As he ended his description in a low
tone, looking straight at the fire, my father
drew his big band across his forehead once
or twice, his face being damp and shining
with the moisture of fear, and he sighed, or
rather groaned, heavily.

My mother had relapsed into panic, and
was praying again in her fear. I, too, was
terribly frightened, and on the point of
crying, for I knew all about the white cat.

Clapping my father on the shoulder, by
way of encouragement, my mother leaned
over him, kissing him, and at last began
to cry. He was wringing her hands in
his, and seemed in great trouble.

"There was nothin' came into the house
with me?" he asked, in a very low tone,
turning to me.

"There was nothin', father," I said,
"but the saddle and bridle that was in
your hand."

"Nothin' white kem in at the doore
wid me," he repeated.

"Nothin' at all," I answered.

"So best," said my father, and making
the sign of the cross, he began mumbling
to himself, and I knew he was saying his
prayers.

Waiting for a while, to give him time for
this exercise, my mother asked him where
he first saw it.

"When I was riding up the bohereen,"
—the Irish term meaning a little road, such
as leads up to a farm-house—"I bethought
myself that the men was on the road with
the cattle, and no one to look to the horse
barrin' myself, so I thought I might as
well leave him in the crooked field below,
an' I tuck him there, he bein' cool, and not
a hair turned, for I rode him aisy all the
way. It was when I turned, after lettin'
him go—the saddle and bridle bein' in my
hand—that I saw it, pushin' out o' the long
grass at the side o' the path, an' it walked
across it, in front of me, an' then back
again, before me, the same way, an' sometimes
at one side, an' then at the other,
lookin' at me wid them shinin' green eyes;
and I consayted I heard it growlin' as it
kep' beside me—as close as ever you see—
till I kem up to the doore, here, an' knocked
an' called, as ye heerd me."

Now, what was it, in so simple an incident,
that agitated my father, my mother,
myself, and, finally, every member of this
rustic household, with a terrible foreboding?
It was this that we, one and all, believed
that my father had received, in thus
encountering the white cat, a warning of his
approaching death.

The omen had never failed hitherto. It
did not fail now. In a week after my
father took the fever that was going, and
before a month he was dead.

My honest friend, Dan Donovan, paused
here; I could perceive that he was praying,
for his lips were busy, and I concluded
that it was for the repose of that departed
soul.

In a little while he resumed.

It is eighty years now since that omen
first attached to my family. Eighty years?
Ay, is it. Ninety is nearer the mark. And
I have spoken to many old people, in those
earlier times, who had a distinct recollection
of everything connected with it.

It happened in this way.

My grand-uncle, Connor Donovan, had
the old farm of Drumgunniol in his day.
He was richer than ever my father was, or
my father's father either, for he took a
short lease of Balraghan, and made money
of it. But money won't soften a hard
heart, and I'm afraid my grand-uncle was
a cruel man—a profligate man he was,
surely, and that is mostly a cruel man at
heart. He drank his share, too, and cursed
and swore, when he was vexed, more than
was good for his soul, I'm afraid.

At that time there was a beautiful girl
of the Colemans, up in the mountains, not
far from Capper Cullen. I'm told that
there are no Colemans there now at all, and
that family has passed away. The famine
years made great changes.

Ellen Coleman was her name. The
Colemans were not rich. But, being such
a beauty, she might have made a good
match. Worse than she did for herself,
poor thing, she could not.

Con Donovan my grand-uncle, God
forgive him!—sometimes in his rambles saw
her at fairs or patterns, and he fell in love
with her, as who might not?

He used her ill. He promised her
marriage, and persuaded her to come away
with him; and, after all, he broke his word.