About four years later, in the same month, the lady’s married sister and two children were alone in the house.  The eldest child, a boy of about four or five years, asked for a drink, and his mother went to fetch it, desiring him to remain in the dining-room until her return.  Coming back she met the boy pale and trembling, and on asking him why he left the room, he replied, “Who is that woman—­who is that woman?” “Where?” she asked.  “That old woman who went upstairs,” he replied.  So agitated was he, that she took him by the hand and went upstairs to search, but no one was to be found, though he still maintained that a woman went upstairs.  A friend of the family subsequently told them that a woman had been killed in the house many years previously, and that it was reported to be haunted.

CHAPTER II

HAUNTED HOUSES IN CONN’S HALF

From a very early period a division of Ireland into two “halves” existed.  This was traditionally believed to have been made by Conn the Hundred-fighter and Mogh Nuadat, in A.D. 166.  The north was in consequence known as Conn’s Half, the south as Mogh’s Half, the line of division being a series of gravel hills extending from Dublin to Galway.  This division we have followed, except that we have included the whole of the counties of West Meath and Galway in the northern portion.  We had hoped originally to have had four chapters on Haunted Houses, one for each of the four provinces, but, for lack of material from Connaught, we have been forced to adopt the plan on which Chapters I-III are arranged.

Mrs. Acheson, of Co.  Roscommon, sends the following:  “Emo House, Co.  Westmeath, a very old mansion since pulled down, was purchased by my grandfather for his son, my father.  The latter had only been living in it for a few days when knocking commenced at the hall door.  Naturally he thought it was someone playing tricks, or endeavouring to frighten him away.  One night he had the lobby window open directly over the door.  The knocking commenced, and he looked out:  it was a very bright night, and as there was no porch he could see the door distinctly; the knocking continued, but he did not see the knocker move.  Another night he sat up expecting his brother, but as the latter did not come he went to bed.  Finally the knocking became so loud and insistent that he felt sure his brother must have arrived.  He went downstairs and opened the door, but no one was there.  Still convinced that his brother was there and had gone round to the yard to put up his horse, he went out; but scarcely had he gone twenty yards from the door when the knocking recommenced behind his back.  On turning round he could see no one.”