"Is she, then, of noble birth?" I asked.

"Oh, it's not easy to say!" he replied, evasively. "Some say she is, and more say she isn't."

Here was a mystery with a vengeance.

[Pg 12]

[Pg 12]

"Perhaps you can tell me, at least, what is the Phoul-a-Phooka?"

The landlord gave me a half-startled look.

"The blessin' of God be about us!" he ejaculated, piously. "I wonder now, ma'am dear, why you would care to be inquirin' into things of the sort."

"But what sort of thing is it?" I persisted. "Something, I am sure, which we do not have in America, where we claim to have so much. Our steam-whistles and the roar of our factories have driven from us what Ireland has kept—her legends and her poetry."

The man did not seem to relish this style of conversation, or, perhaps, to understand it; for he answered somewhat shortly:

"The Phoul-a-Phooka is a wild horse, the devil himself takin' that shape; and woe to any one whom he gets upon his back!"

"Oh, it can't be to see a wild horse that this child is going!" I remonstrated.

"No, ma'am; 'tis to a wild, solitary spot, with a power of waterfalls in it," replied the landlord. "But it gets its name from the beast I'm tellin' you of."

"Oh! is that it?" I replied.

"Yes ma'am; 'twas there that the horse leaped a precipice with the tailor that had about him the priest's soutane he was after makin'. The horse felt it like a stone's weight on his back, and down he went with the tailor."

The man told the story with some hesitation, as if not seeming to believe in it, and yet reluctant to express disbelief openly.

"It's a beautiful spot, though, ma'am; that's what it is. And mebbe you'd be goin' to see it yourself some of these days."

[Pg 13]

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