the significant thing about this story is that juliette milton had never heard any rumors about ghosts , witches , curses , or the like associated with the mayfair family she and beatrice truly believed this mysterious person was a human being yet at the very same time , in the irish channel old people gossiped over kitchen tables about 'deirdre and the man ' and by 'the man , ' they did not mean a human being the elderly sister of father lafferty knew about 'the man . '