"Indeed, I don't know who she was. I had never set eyes on her before that, and I tell you I have no desire to see her again," said Dermot. "She was the most extraordinary woman I ever came across."
"What sort of woman was she?" said Cormac.
"A bad sort, I promise you," said Dermot. "She was a great stump of a hard, rough, bony woman, and she was blind of one eye, and one side of her mouth was twisted back almost to her ear, save the mark ever!"
"Oh, I have her!" said Cormac. "A bad sort! you may well say it. I know that bold lass a long time. It was I that put her eye out and disfigured her face like that."
"You!" said Dermot.
"Yes, I. And I will tell you how it was," said Cormac. "I think it was ten years ago. I was coming home from Cork. It was in the dead of night. I was coming this way toward Dripsey Bridge. I knew the place had the name of being haunted, but I had no nervousness or fear about it. I never have any fear of anything of that sort, whatever time of night it may be, when I am doing my own business. They cannot touch a person who is doing his own business and not interfering with them, directly or indirectly. But if a person will be going into haunted places at unseasonable times and through sheer foolhardiness, it is no wonder that he should get something else to mind sometimes. But anyhow, by a side-look that I gave, what should I see but a woman sitting on the other shaft of the cart from me, with her back to me. When I saw her I suppose I must have got a touch of faintness on account of the place being said to be haunted; but whatever it was
