“Some years afterwards a friend, who happened at the time to be a boarder at this very school, came to spend a week-end with me.  She related an exactly similar incident which occurred a few nights previous to her visit.  My experience was quite unknown to her.”

The following account of strange happenings at his glebe-house has been sent by the rector of a parish in the diocese of Cashel:  “Shortly after my wife and I came to live here, some ten years ago, the servants complained of hearing strange noises in the top storey of the Rectory where they sleep.  One girl ran away the day after she arrived, declaring that the house was haunted, and that nothing would induce her to sleep another night in it.  So often had my wife to change servants on this account that at last I had to speak to the parish priest, as I suspected that the idea of ‘ghosts’ might have been suggested to the maids by neighbours who might have some interest in getting rid of them.  I understand that my friend the parish priest spoke very forcibly from the altar on the subject of spirits, saying that the only spirits he believed ever did any harm to anyone were ——­, mentioning a well-known brand of the wine of the country.  Whether this priestly admonition was the cause or not, for some time we heard no more tales of ghostly manifestations.

“After a while, however, my wife and I began to hear a noise which, while in no sense alarming, has proved to be both remarkable and inexplicable.  If we happen to be sitting in the dining-room after dinner, sometimes we hear what sounds like the noise of a heavy coach rumbling up to the hall door.  We have both heard this noise hundreds of times between eight P.M. and midnight.  Sometimes we hear it several times the same night, and then perhaps we won’t hear it again for several months.  We hear it best on calm nights, and as we are nearly a quarter of a mile from the high road, it is difficult to account for, especially as the noise appears to be quite close to us—­I mean not farther away than the hall-door.  I may mention that an Englishman was staying with us a few years ago.  As we were sitting in the dining-room one night after dinner he said, ’A carriage has just driven up to the door’; but we knew it was only the ‘phantom coach,’ for we also heard it.  Only once do I remember hearing it while sitting in the drawing-room.  So much for the ‘sound’ of the ‘phantom coach,’ but now I must tell you what I saw with my own eyes as clearly as I now see the paper on which I am writing.  Some years ago in the middle of the summer, on a scorching hot day, I was out cutting some hay opposite the hall door just by the tennis court.  It was between twelve and one o’clock.  I remember the time distinctly, as my man had gone to his dinner shortly before.  The spot on which I was commanded a view of the avenue from the entrance gate for about four hundred yards.  I happened to look up from my occupation—­for scything is no easy work—­and