The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Bound in Cloth, with Picture Wrappers.

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T. FISHER UNWIN, Ltd., 1, Adelphi Terrace, LONDON.

Patsy

by

H. de. Vere Stacpoole

London

C. Fisher Unwin L^td

Adelphi Terrace

[All rights reserved]

CONTENTS

PATSY

CHAPTER I
WHERE THE WILD GEESE FLY

A flock of wild geese flying across the sunset far away, remote, fantastic, the only living things visible in a world filling with shadows, lent the last touch of beauty to the vast and lonely moors.

“They’re makin’ for the pools of Cloyne, sir,” said the keeper.

Mr Fanshawe watched the flock pass and vanish in the amber distance like a wreath of smoke. Away to the left, covering themselves with night and gloom, stood the hills of Glynn, where the golden eagle still has its eyrie, and the wild goat its home. From there, away to the west, the great moors stretched to the hills of Cloyne.

It was a typical Irish winter’s evening, the sky threatening and forgetting to rain, the air damp and filled with the scent of the earth, near things indistinct in the gathering twilight, and far things seeming near.

From where Mr Fanshawe stood, with his pipe in his mouth and his gun under his arm, you might have started with a brave heart to walk to the hills of Cloyne. Ten miles distant, or at most twelve, they seemed, those hills that lay thirty Irish miles away.

Fanshawe was staying for the hunting with Mr Trench of Dunboyne House. He had come out to-day to have a shot at the snipe, and he had not done badly, to judge by the weight of the bag Micky Finn, the old keeper, was carrying.

“Well,” said the young man, refilling and lighting his pipe, “we’d better be getting back. How far are we from the house, Micky?”

“A matter of five mile be the boggs, sir, an’ siven be the road; which way would your ’arner be chusin’ to take?”

“The road,” said Mr Fanshawe, and, followed by Micky and the dogs, he struck towards the high-road from Dunbeg which goes across the moors white and straight like a chalk-line drawn by a giant.

“You were afther askin’ me, sir, what time the letters came from Dunbeg,” said Micky, as they stepped on to the highway. “Here’s Larry and the letters now, comin’ as hard as he can pelt two hours late, the blackguyard! He’s been stoppin’ to drink at Billy Sheehan’s, or colloguing wid the girls; musha, but it’s little he cares who waits for their letters whin the bottle’s before him.”

Mr Fanshawe shaded his eyes, and with a constriction of the heart watched the horseman and the horse coming at a furious pace and developing with magical speed against the sunset. The sound of the hoofs, like the sound of castanets in the hands of a madman, came on the breeze.

The horseman, a ragged individual with a leer on his face, no boots on his feet, and a post-bag slung on his back, reined in when he came level with the keeper and the gentleman, bringing his horse literally on its haunches.

“Any letters for Mr Fanshawe, Larry?” asked the keeper.

“Begob!” said Larry, swinging the post-bag round and opening it, “there’s letters enough for a dozen, but I’m no schollard to tell yiz who thir for; will y’ be afther puttin’ your hand in the bag, sir, and takin’ your chice?”

Mr Fanshawe did as he was invited. There was only one letter for him, all the rest were for Mr Trench or members of his household.

It was not the letter he had been half expecting by every post for weeks and weeks past, and he opened it with a gloomy brow, and read it by the light of sunset as Larry rode on and the sound of the hoofs died away on the high-road.

To be young, rich, healthy, good-looking, and yet unhappy! No other magician but Love could bring about such an extraordinary concatenation of states.

Love had done this in the case of Mr Fanshawe.

As for the letter, it was addressed from Glen Druid House, Tullagh, Mid Meath, and it ran:

“Dear Richard,—I have only just been informed that you are staying with my friends the Trenches, to whom, through you, I send my very kind regards.

“This house is only some forty miles from where you are now, and as I have a small house-party coming on the 10th, the happy idea has occurred to me that you might join us, if your engagements will permit you so to do. You will find shooting enough to please you, I think, in the coverts, and the O’Farrel’s hounds meet twice a week. You will also find a sincere welcome from your old friend,

“Selina Seagrave.

“P.S.—I am here, at present, by myself. I would be quite alone were it not that I have your cousin Robert’s children staying with me. Bob (Lord Gawdor), Doris, and Selina my namesake.”

“Bother the children!” said Mr Fanshawe, thrusting the letter into the pocket of his shooting coat, and little dreaming what pleasant factors in the making of his fate those same children were to be.

He was rather fond of children, as a matter of fact, but he was in love, and he had been deciphering Lady Seagrave’s old-fashioned caligraphy in the hope of finding, like a flower in a wilderness, the magical name of Violet Lestrange.

“Do you know anything of Glen Druid House, near Tullagh, Micky?” he asked, as they trudged along together in the deepening twilight.

“Yes, sor,” replied Micky; “it’s be Castle Knock over beyant thim hills. It was Mr Moriarty’s in the ould days. The place went to rot an’ ruin whin the ould gintleman died, but they do be tellin’ me it’s changed hands to an ould lady from over the wather.”

“Is there good shooting?”

“Shutin’!” said Micky, speaking more from a desire to be amiable than from absolute knowledge. “Sure, it’s not a gun you’d want there at all, at all, for you could knock the cock phisints down wid your fist. Phisints! ay, be jabers! an’ woodcock an’ teal; and as for hares an’ rabbits, the groun’s is jumpin’ an’ runnin’ wid them.”

“If nothing better turns up,” said Mr Fanshawe to himself, “I’m not sure that I won’t accept the old girl’s invitation;” and ten days later, as you may have guessed from this preamble, he did.

CHAPTER II
PATSY

“Miss Kiligrew,” said little Lord Gawdor, looking up from his slate and the multiplication sum on it that wouldn’t come right.

“Yes, Robert?”

“William, the page-boy, was sent away yesterday for stealing the jam.”

“Go on with your sum,” answered the governess, who was seated at the other end of the table helping Doris, little Lord Gawdor’s sister, to make a map. “This is the third time you have interrupted me with frivolous remarks. How can you expect to make your sum come right if you do not fix your mind on your slate?”

“I will in a minit,” said his lordship; “but I want to tell you, he’d cribbed a pot of plum jam, and he heard some one coming, and he popped it in the copper in the back kitchen where the clothes were boiling. Gran’ma said she never heard of an act of such—what was it, Doris?”

“Turpentine, I think,” replied Doris, throwing back her golden hair from her forehead, relieved to escape for a moment from the monotony of map-making.

“‘Turpitude,’ I suppose you mean,” said Miss Kiligrew.

“Yes, that was it,” said Lord Gawdor. “What’s it mean?”

“Wickedness,” replied Miss Kiligrew. “Go on with your sum.”

“I will; but I want just to tell you, he went away yesterday, and gran’ma said to Mrs Kinsella the cook she didn’t know what she’d do for a page-boy, and cook said she’d try and get Patsy Rooney, the son of the keeper, to come. He’s that red-headed boy we saw carrying the rabbits in the park the other day. My eye!” he concluded with a burst of laughter, “won’t he look funny in buttons!”

“Go on with your sum,” said Miss Kiligrew severely, “and don’t use vulgar expressions before your sister. Who taught you to say that?”

“What?”

“My eye.”

“William, I b’lieve.”

“Well, it is a very good thing he was sent about his business. Go on with your sum.”

Lord Gawdor did as he was bid, and there was silence for a while, broken only by the squeaking of his pencil on the slate and an occasional clicking sound from under the table, where Selina, his youngest sister, aged five, was seated on the floor playing with a box of bricks. They were in the day nursery, which was also the schoolroom, of Glen Druid Park, a great old Irish country house.

Little Lord Gawdor’s mother was dead and his father was in India. He and his sisters were living with their grandmother, Lady Seagrave. It was three weeks before Christmas, and as Lady Seagrave had invited a house-party, the house was in a state of upset owing to the preparations. Downstairs rooms were being cleaned and dusted, carpets taken up and shaken, mirrors polished, and mattresses standing to air before huge fires.

All the fun of a general house-cleaning was going on, and it seemed very hard to Lord Gawdor and Doris that they had to sit all the morning doing sums and making maps instead of helping to increase the confusion down below.

“I’ve done my sum,” said his lordship at last.

“When I have finished demarcating this frontier I will look at it,” said Miss Kiligrew, who had a paint brush in her hand, and was in the act of tinting with red the boundary line between Cochin China and Somewhere-else.

“All right,” said the boy; “don’t hurry, I can wait as long as you like.” He left the chair and, going to the window, he climbed on to the window-seat and looked out at the park. He had scarcely been a minute at the window when he gave a cry.

“Miss Kiligrew—come here, quick!”

The governess and Doris left the table and came to the window.

“That’s him,” said Lord Gawdor, pointing to a small figure trudging across the park.

“Who?” asked the governess.

“Patsy Rooney,” replied he.

“How dare you call me from my work to look at such nonsense!” cried Miss Kiligrew. “Have you no regard for the value of my time?”

“Patsy isn’t nonsense,” replied his lordship. “They say he can trap rabbits better than his father, and he keeps the ferrits and helps to clean the guns, and,” finished up Lord Gawdor, dropping off the window-seat and coming back wearily to the table, “I wish to goodness I was him!”

CHAPTER III
THE FORM IN THE WOOD

It had snowed slightly in the early morning, and enough snow lay on the ground to take the track of a hare.

The ground told quite a lot of things to Patsy Rooney as he made his way across Glen Druid Park from his father’s cottage to the little village of Castle Knock, which lies beyond the park a mile to the west, where the Tullagh road meets the road to Kilgobbin.

Out in the open spaces the great feet of the crows had left their mark clear cut in the snow. Crossing them you could see the lesser traces of the ringed plover, and all sorts of little birds had left tiny footprints where the snow lay thin and white as a sheet on the borders of the beech woods.

All kinds of rare birds came to Glen Druid Park, for the place had been deserted so long that there was no one to trouble them, except Patsy’s father, who was the keeper, and who lived in the keeper’s cottage close to the Big House.

The Big House had been deserted for years, but it was deserted no longer, for only that autumn Lady Seagrave had taken it, and she and her family had already moved in; and there were, as I have hinted, to be great doings at Christmas, and the whole country-side was talking of the wonderful things that were to happen when the “quality” arrived.

By the “quality” the country people meant the guests who were coming over from England. Lords and ladies were reputed to be coming, and bringing their hunting horses with them, and there was a rumour that a bishop was coming, too. Patsy was anxious enough to see the lords and ladies, but he was more anxious still to see the bishop; what such a thing was like he could not in the least imagine. He could have asked, but he didn’t: firstly, because he was a person of such little importance that no one would have been bothered answering him; and secondly, because he did not want to spoil the sight when it came by knowing what it would be like beforehand. He thought it was some sort of animal.

He was going through the beech woods now at a “sweep’s trot” to keep himself warm. He had an old stake plucked from a fence in his hand, and as he ran he would every now and then twirl the stake round his head and give a “whoop” that sent the startled birds fluttering through the branches and the rabbits scuttling through the withered fern.

He was not going through the thick of the wood, but down a broad drive that was the shortest cut to the village; and he did not twirl the stake round his head and whoop for the fun of the thing, but to keep up his courage. For the drive was just the place where the “carriage” was always met.

Patsy’s uncle had seen the “carriage,” or said he had. So had a lot of other people. It was a hearse with plumes, driven by a man without a head, and it was supposed to haunt the grounds of Glen Druid Park, sometimes even in daylight.

The horrible thing about it was that when the man without the head saw you, he made straight for you; and, if he overtook you, down he would get and bundle you into the vehicle and drive off, and then you were done for.

The snow on the drive, like the snow on the grass of the park, showed all sorts of little footprints. Tracks of hares and rabbits and the trail of a stoat, Patsy knew and could distinguish them all. Though he could neither read or write, he knew the habits and names of all the wild animals and birds that were to be seen in the woods and ways around; he knew all the tales about the fairies that lived under the ferns in the glens, and the cluricaunes that cobbled the fairies’ boots. He had never seen a cluricaune or a fairy, but he believed in them, notwithstanding the fact that he had a very sharp and practical mind where the ordinary business of life was concerned.

Suddenly Patsy came to a stand close to the trunk of a great beech tree. He had caught a glimpse of something in the wood on the right-hand side of the drive.

CHAPTER IV
CON COGAN

It looked like a heap of old clothes at first sight, then he made it out to be the figure of a man on his knees engaged in taking a rabbit from a snare.

He was a forlorn-looking man in tatters, and with long hair that hung over his shoulders, and, bent down there amidst the withered ferns, and under the shadow of the tree branches, he looked not unlike a gnome or the ghost of a robber; but he did not frighten the boy, who recognised the figure at once as that of his uncle, Con Cogan.

Con Cogan had once been the blacksmith at Castle Knock, but he had sold his business and taken to bad ways, and he was now the terror of the country-side. He had no house of his own, but just lived as he could, sleeping in barns and hayricks, sometimes begging his food, sometimes stealing it. He was suspected of being a highway robber, but he had never been caught in the act; and though a good many people knew things about him that would have sent him to prison, they never told: not because they had any special love for him, but because they were afraid. It was said that he had the evil eye, and that if he cast a “black look” on a person it would be all over with them and they would never do another day’s good. Besides this, he always carried a blackthorn stick with knobs on it; there were seven notches on the handle of it, and people said that every notch stood for a man he had killed.

As the boy stood watching his uncle, the latter suddenly rose up with the dead rabbit he had caught in his hand, and seeing his nephew gave him good-morning.

“And where are you off to, Patsy?” said he.

“I’m going on an arrand,” replied Patsy.

“And where’s that?” asked Con, as he stuffed the rabbit into the pocket of his old overcoat, and took up the blackthorn stick he had dropped.

“To Castle Knock,” replied Patsy.

“And what are you going to do with yourself when you get to Castle Knock?” asked Con.

“I’m goin’ to do me arrand.”

“Blisther you and your arrands!” shouted his uncle. “Talk English, will yiz, or I’ll prod the sinse out of you with the end of me blackthorn stick!”

“Ohone!” cried Patsy. “Sure, it’s skinned alive I’ll be if I’m not back by twelve with the ca’tridges for the guns that’s waitin’ at the post-office with the lethers for the Big House.”

“So they’ve made you the postman,” said Con.

“Bob Murphy’s laid up with the rheumatism,” replied Con’s nephew. “Crool bad he is; and me father says to me: ‘Away wid you, Patsy, to Castle Knock for the lethers, and ax thim has the ca’tridges for the guns come from Dublin, and fetch thim if they have. And if you drop wan of them it’s skinned alive you’ll be, or me name’s not Micky Rooney.’”

“Oh, he did, did he?” said Con.

“Them’s were his words,” said Patsy; “so I must be runnin’ on me arrand.”

“Oh, you must be runnin’ on your arrand, must you?” asked Con in a meditative tone.

“I must.”

“And your daddy said he’d skin you alive if you weren’t quick, did he?”

“He did.”

“Well, it’s I that’ll be skinnin’ you dead in two ticks if you don’t hould your whisht and be doin’ my bidding.”

“Ohone!” wailed Patsy.

“Whisht!” shouted Con.

Patsy became dumb. He would have darted off like a rabbit and tried to escape by running, only he was afraid of being brought to earth by Con’s blackthorn stick hurled after him, for Con was a terrible marksman, and he had been known a kill a pheasant thirty paces off with no other weapon than his deftly-flung stick.

“I’m not wishful to get you in trouble, Patsy,” said Con, “it’s not that I’m after; so I’ll just be walkin’ beside you on the way to Castle Knock, and I’ll give you the slip before we catch sight of the village, for there’s a policeman there I’m not wishful to meet, and it’s livin’ in an old tree I am to keep out of his way. What I want to ask you is, when are the quality comin’ to the Big House?”

“They’re comin’ before Chris’mas,” replied Patsy. “Lords and ladies and horses and bishop and all.”

“And who’s staying at the Big House now?”

“Old Lady Seagrave and her gran’childer,” replied Patsy, as he trotted beside his uncle.

“And how many gran’childer has the old lady?” asked Con.

“Three,” replied Patsy. “There’s the little lord; he wears putty leggin’s and a shootin’ coat an’ all, and he only nine; and there’s Miss Doris, wid the long gold hair, and she’s eight; then there’s Selina.”

“What’s that?” asked Con.

“Selina.”

“And what the divil’s Selina?”

“The baby; leastways, they call her the baby. Selina’s her name, and she’s five; she gets in the coal-scuttle when she has the chanst, she’s that small and over-bould. Biddy Mahony is their nurse, and she told me all about them. They eats off china, wid silver forks.”

“Silver forks, did you say?” asked Con.

“Yes, and spoons.”

“Patsy.”

“Yes?”

“It’s thrubled with thinkin’ I am.”

“And what are you thinkin’ about?” asked Patsy anxiously.

“I was thinkin’,” replied Con, “that if you were inside the Big House and I was outside you might maybe hand me out wan or two, or maybe three, of thim silver spoons and forks.”

“But, sure, that would be stealin’,” said Patsy.

“Who said it wouldn’t?” answered Con.

There was no reply to be made to this, so they trudged along in silence.

They had not gone more than two hundred yards when Con left the drive and turned down a path to the right.

CHAPTER V
THE MAN IN THE TREE

“Sure, this isn’t the way to Castle Knock!” cried Patsy, drawing back.

“And who said it was?” replied Con, seizing him by the hand. “Is it geography you’d be teachin’ me, or what ails you at all, at all? Come on wid you now, or it’s the knock without the castle you’ll be getting in a minit.”

“Uncle Con,” said Patsy, when they had gone some distance, “where are you taking me?”

“Come along and you’ll see,” replied Con.

A moment later, to the boy’s relief, Con struck into a path to the left, and they found themselves in a little glade in the centre of which stood the remains of a great oak.

“Here we are,” said Con; “I’ve brought you to see Paddy Murphy, who’s hidin’ from the police.”

All the branches of the oak were gone and just ten feet of the bole remained, and it looked like a great stilton cheese the centre of which has been scooped out and eaten.

“Are you there?” cried Con, halting about ten paces from the oak.

“Faith, and I b’lave I am,” replied a voice.

“Well, the coast’s clear,” replied Con, “so out you may come.”

A scrambling noise came from the tree, and a close-cropped head appeared over the edge of the bole; the head was followed by a body, next instant a fat little man was standing on the turf beside Con and Patsy. He had a jolly red face and bright, twinkling eyes.

It would be more correct to say that at first his face seemed jolly, for when you had been speaking to him a minute or so, the face of this little man seemed no longer humorous, but, somehow, dreadful.

At first sight Con Cogan was a terrible-looking man, but when you had spoken to him for a while you did not feel in the least afraid of him. It was different with Paddy Murphy.

Con took the rabbit out of his pocket and began to skin it, whilst Mr Murphy lit a fire with dry sticks and a tinder-box.

All the time they talked, and Patsy stood by listening and shivering, for he knew that the little man was a road robber who had been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment only six months before, and who, as the whole country-side knew, had broken out of gaol and was in hiding from the police.

“I think I can fix it up at the Big House,” said Con, as he skinned his rabbit. “Here’s me sister’s boy, Patsy Rooney, knows one of the servants. I’m thinkin’ if we shoved him in through the little scullery window he could open the door to us; there’s tons of silver spoons and forks to be had for the pickin’ up.”

“Bother spoons and forks!” replied the little man; “who wants spoons and forks when they can put their hands on diamonds and jewels? Sure, isn’t there a party of lords and ladies coming over for Chris’mas, and what do lords and ladies wear but diamonds and jewels?”

“But,” said Con, pausing with the skinned rabbit in his hand, “supposing they do wear diamonds and jewels, how are we to get them off them?”

“Off them?” replied Mr Murphy. “Do you suppose they sleep in them? Why, every one of them undresses every night of their lives—not like you an’ me sleeping in this ould tree—and off they takes their jew’lery and puts them in boxes.”

“I see,” said Con; “and you’d be after slippin’ into the house when they were all a-bed, and whippin’ off with the boxes.”

“That’s my meaning,” replied Mr Murphy. “Hand me the rabbit till I stick him on the spit, for it’s hungry I am and I wants me breakfast.” He put the rabbit to roast by the fire he had built, and then he went on. “That’s my meaning; but to get into the house there’s only one way, and that’s to slip a gossoon through the little scullery window; and there’s only one gossoon of me acquaintance I’d trust with the job, and this is him.” He suddenly pounced on Patsy. “Now then, Patsy,” said he, “confess your sins before I makes a freemason of you. When did you say the quality was coming to the Big House?”

“This day week,” replied Patsy; “and don’t be twistin’ me arm, it’s the truth I’m telling you.”

“Are you wishful and willin’ to get through the window and open the door to us?”

“No—yes—ow, let go of me arm!” shrieked the unfortunate Patsy, whose arm had received a sudden twitch from behind that nearly wrenched if from the socket.

“Wishful and willin’?” reiterated Mr Murphy.

“Yes!” cried Patsy.

“Will yiz swear to do me biddin’?”

“I will.”

“Will yiz swear to be ready and waitin’ for us whenever we want you, which won’t be before this day week?”

“I will.”

“Now then, Con,” said Mr. Murphy, “give me that burning stick out of the fire till I brands him with the mark and makes a freemason of him, so’s the pain will larn him what he’ll get if he breaks his oath.”

He was bending for the stick, when Patsy, who was now on his knees, mad with terror, made a frantic dash for liberty between Mr. Murphy’s legs. That gentleman put off his balance, made a grab at Con; Con’s foot slipped, and Con, Mr. Murphy, rabbit and all, went rolling into the ashes of the fire.

When they had collected themselves and shaken the cinders out of their hair Patsy Rooney was gone.

CHAPTER VI
THE HIRING OF PATSY

Patsy ran and ran. He was so frightened that at first he did not know where he was running to, and when he came to his senses he was more than half-way to Castle Knock. Paddy Murphy had nearly scared him to death, and no wonder, for the road robber was the terror of the country-side. He had robbed the mails, he had broken into houses, and it was said, that in a fit of rage he had once roasted a live baby.

That was, of course, nonsense, yet Patsy remembered it; and when he thought of the red-hot stick and the freemasonry business it made him run all the faster, so that when he arrived in Castle Knock he was out of breath and nearly spent.

He found the letters waiting for him at the post-office and a great case of cartridges from Truelock & Harris, the gun-makers in Dublin. It was addressed to Mr Fanshawe, one of the guests expected for Christmas; and with the cartridges under one arm and the mail-bag with the letters slung over his back, he started across the park, keeping a bright look-out for fear of meeting his uncle.

He crossed the park in safety, and came round by the back way through the stable-yard to the kitchen entrance of the Big House. As he came through the yard Bumble, the watch-dog, dashed out of his kennel and tried to “fetch” him.

Bumble was a most extraordinary-looking dog. He was as big as a sheep, and his head was like a muff; to look at him you never could have imagined that his great-great-grandfather had been a greyhound, yet he had.

His great-great-grandmother had been an old Irish wolf hound. His mother was a bob-tailed collie, and he had an uncle who was a Dandy Dinmont. He was a mongrel, in short.

Patsy was not a bit afraid of Bumble, for the old dog had lost his teeth and was quite harmless, despite his ferocious appearance. He took his parcels round to the kitchen door and knocked; and whilst he stood waiting to be let in, he looked around him hoping to catch a sight of the children.

The children interested Patsy a lot. He had never spoken to them, but he had seen them at a distance in the park, driving in the governess-cart with their governess.

Once he had met them all quite close in the drive, and Selina had laughed and nodded to him in quite a friendly way; the other children smiled, but Miss Kiligrew frowned, and he heard her say:

“Selina, who is that dirty little boy you are nodding to? Remember that you are a lady.”

Patsy was remembering this incident when the kitchen door was flung open, and Mrs Kinsella, the great fat cook, herself appeared before him, with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow and her hands all covered with flour.

“Why, it’s Patsy Rooney!” she cried. “And it’s you I’ve been sending to look for, and here you are come of yourself.”

She led the way down a stone passage into a huge old-fashioned kitchen, where a number of kitchen-maids were at work polishing pots and pans.

“Them’s the letters,” said Patsy, laying the bag on the table, “and them’s is the ca’tridges for the gintleman that’s comin’. Don’t let them near the fire, or it’s blown to blazes you’ll be, and the house along with you.”

“Take them away,” said Mrs Kinsella; “I don’t want any such things in my nice clean kitchen. Put them in a bucket of water, Jane, and maybe they’ll be safe. Take up your letters, Patsy, and follow me, for her ladyship wants to see you.”

“To see me?” cried Patsy in alarm.

“Yourself, and no one else,” replied the cook.

“O Mrs Kinsella, what have I been doin’ at all, at all!” cried Patsy, so flurried out of his wits as not to be able to remember his sins. “Is it the thraps I’ve been settin’ in the wood?”

“You come along,” said Mrs Kinsella, who had washed her hands and rolled down her sleeves. “You come along, and you’ll soon see, only be sure, when she speaks to you, say ‘Yes, my lady,’ that’s all you need say; I’ll do the tellin’ and the talkin’. Wipe your boots on the mat here, and keep your mouth shut, and not hanging open like a rat-trap with a broken spring. Come here now till I brush your head, for you wouldn’t go before her ladyship with your hair standin’ up like the bristles on a broom.”

She brushed his hair with an old brush which one of the scullery maids fetched, and then she washed his face with soap, and rubbed it with a towel till it shone; Patsy, submitting without a word, for he was too terrified now to ask questions.

“Now come along,” said the cook, when she had made him fairly presentable. “And what are you to say when her ladyship speaks to you?”

“Yes, me lady,” replied Patsy promptly.

“That’s right, and don’t forget,” replied Mrs Kinsella; and, followed by Patsy, she left the kitchen.

Patsy, who had never been beyond the kitchen of the Big House before, followed his guide down a long stone passage, up a flight of steps, through a swing-door, then along a corridor from which they entered a great hall. Patsy had never seen anything like this, for the floor of the hall was of polished oak, shining like glass; a staircase, so broad that you might have driven a coach and horses up it, led from the hall to the first landing. Round the hall was a gallery, and under the gallery stood men in armour, looking very ghostly in the dim light.

They were only suits of armour, of course, but they were fixed so that it was impossible to tell whether there were men inside them or not.

“Mrs Kinsella, ma’am,” whispered Patsy.

“What is it, Patsy?” answered the cook.

“Let’s go back, for it’s afeared I am.”

“You come along,” answered the cook.

She knocked at a door, a voice answered “Come in”; she opened the door and, followed by Patsy, entered a pleasantly furnished room, where a stately-looking old lady sat by a great fire of holly logs which was blazing on the hearth.

This was Lady Seagrave herself, and Patsy looked at her with awe, for she was seventy-nine years of age, and as deaf as a post. People said she remembered the Battle of Waterloo, and some of the more ignorant country people said she had been at it. Patsy could almost have believed this as he stood looking at her, for she was a very fierce-looking old lady, with heavy eyebrows, a large nose, and bright, piercing eyes. She was beautifully dressed, and her fingers were covered with sparkling rings; she held an ear-trumpet to her ear.

“This is Patsy Rooney, your ladyship,” cried Mrs Kinsella through the trumpet. “I’ve washed him and brushed him to make him a bit respectable, for it’s wild in the woods he’s been runnin’ this last two years, ever since his mother died.”

“Oh, this is Patsy Rooney, is it?” said Lady Seagrave. “Hum! he looks wild enough still, but I daresay time and soap will work wonders. Is he honest, cook?”

“As honest a lad as your ladyship would find in the length and breadth of the land,” replied Mrs Kinsella.

“Have you explained to him that I wish him to enter my service in the capacity of page-boy?”

“No, your ladyship; I just cotched him and washed him and brought him up to you. His father is wishful and willin’ for him to enter your ladyship’s service.”

“That may be,” replied the old lady, “but I will have no one in my house a slave against their will. Let him advance and answer my questions personally.”

“Put your mouth to the trumpet, and when the old lady asks you a question say ‘Yes, my lady,’” whispered Mrs Kinsella.

Now Lady Seagrave was so old that she sometimes forgot things. She had quite forgotten Patsy’s name.

“What is your name?” asked her ladyship. “I have quite forgotten it. Speak up in a loud, clear voice, and don’t shuffle your feet. Now what is your name?”

“Yes, me lady,” replied Patsy. He had a mortal terror of the trumpet, he had never seen one before. He half imagined that she used it because she was so grand that it would be beneath her dignity to listen to people in the ordinary way.

“What did you say?” asked she.

Patsy imagined he had not spoken loud enough.

“Yes, me lady!” he shouted.

“What do you say?” cried her ladyship.

“Yes, me lady!” cried Patsy, nearly blubbering. “I don’t know which way to be answerin’ you, with her behint me tellin’ me to say one thing and me wantin’ to say another. Me name’s Patsy Rooney, and it’s wishin’ it’s at the divil I was!”

Fortunately Lady Seagrave could not catch the end of the sentence, but she made out the name.

“Patsy Rooney,” said she. “Well, we will call you Patsy for short. Are you a good boy, Patsy?”

“Yes, me lady,” replied he.

“And you would like to enter my service?”

“Yes, me lady.”

“Your father is alive and your mother is dead, I hear. I hope you have no evil companions in the village, for young boys left to their own resources, as you have no doubt been, often pick up most undesirable acquaintances.”

“No, me lady,” replied Patsy in a faltering voice, for he recalled to mind Con Cogan and Paddy Murphy and the promise he had made them to help them to get into the Big House and steal the jewellery of the “quality.” And here he was in the Big House, and going to be hired as page-boy—it seemed like fate.

“Do you smoke?” went on her ladyship.

“Now an’ again, mum—I mean, yes, me lady.”

“What!” cried Lady Seagrave. “Do you dare to tell me that a boy of your tender years indulges in that vile and pernicious habit?”

“Sure, it’s only the draw of a pipe I do be takin’ to aise me mind now and thin,” cried Patsy, “or when I’m out rabbitin’ in the woods alone, for they do say the whiff of a pipe keeps off the Good People.”

“The Good People?” said the old lady. “Who are they?”

“The fairies, mum—I mean, me lady.”

“Dear me,” said Lady Seagrave, “I thought no one believed in such rubbish as fairies nowadays. Well, Patsy Rooney, I will hire you for a month to see if you give satisfaction, and if you don’t you will receive a whipping and be turned away.”

“Leave him to me, your ladyship,” said Mrs Kinsella, as she led Patsy away. “I’ll answer for him giving satisfaction when I’ve belted the fairies and rubbish out of him with a strap.”

CHAPTER VII
MRS FINNEGAN’S BOY

“Mrs Kinsella, ma’am,” said Patsy, as he was led along the corridor back to the kitchen, “Mrs Kinsella, ma’am, what’s a page-boy?”

“You’re one,” replied Mrs Kinsella. “Now come along, and don’t be asking me questions, for I have no time to waste. Here’s your room, and here’s a suit belonging to William, the English page-boy that’s just been sent off home again, being caught stealing the jam; whip into the suit, and when you have it on you come into the kitchen and I’ll tell you what to do next.”

She had opened the door of a small bedroom, and there on the bed lay a page-boy’s suit, only waiting to be put on. Mrs Kinsella closed the door and left Patsy alone to make his toilet.

A new suit of clothes was an event in Patsy’s life. The suit he had on was an old suit of his father’s cut down. He could not remember ever having had a suit of clothes made for him.

The clothes on the bed had not been made for him, it is true, but they were nearly new. The jacket had two rows of buttons down the front, and the trousers had a red stripe down the seams at the side. Patsy had never seen the like of them before.

He got into them, and then he found that for all the buttons on the jacket he could not button it. Holding it together in front he came down the passage to the kitchen, and poked his head in at the half-open door.

“Mrs Kinsella, ma’am.”

“Yes, Patsy,” answered the cook; “what is it?”

“Is it fun you’re making of me?” asked Patsy.

“It’s jelly I’ll be makin’ of you with a rollingpin if you give me any of your impudence,” replied Mrs Kinsella. “What do you mean stickin’ your ugly head in at the door and askin’ me such questions? Come in with you, and give me no more of your sauce.”

“Sure, how can I come in wid me jacket unbuttoned?” asked Patsy. “It’s buttons all over I am, and not a buttonhole can I find to stick one in.”

“Come here,” cried the cook, catching him by the forelock and dragging him into the kitchen. “Do you see these?”—pointing to the hooks and eyes down the edges of the jacket: “them’s hooks and eyes. Hold up your head, now you’re fastened into your jacket, and off you go to the plate pantry and help Mr James, the butler, to clean his silver; but first, before you go, run into the stable-yard and fetch me a bucket of water.”

Patsy did as he was bid. He found a tin bucket in the yard and carefully filled it at the water-tap by the stable door. When the bucket was full he seized it by the handle and was just about to carry it back to the kitchen, when who should come into the yard, with a goose swung over his shoulder, but Micky Finnegan, son of Mrs Finnegan, the woman who had the green-grocer’s shop at Castle Knock.

Micky was an old enemy of Patsy’s. He was a long-legged boy—in fact he looked all legs and arms—a huge mouth and a squint were the next most noticeable things about him. He was not good to look at, in fact he was good for nothing except bullying boys smaller than himself, and sometimes going on an errand for his mother.

The newcomer when he beheld Patsy in his new attire stood stockstill, stared, and then burst into a wild yell of laughter.

Patsy’s red hair bristled up like the spines of a hedgehog, as it always did when he was angry, but he said nothing.

“Hurroo!” shouted Mrs Finnegan’s boy, when he had recovered from his simulated fit of laughter; “here’s Patsy Rooney burst out in buttons; here’s Patsy Rooney drawing water for the maids. Where’s your broom, Patsy? Where’s your dustpan and brush? Have yiz emptied the slops, Patsy, and made the beds and turned down the quilts?”

“And what’s brought you out to-day?” replied Patsy. “You’re afther your time; this isn’t the fifth of Novimber, this isn’t Guy Fawkes Day. Go back to your lumber-room, you stuffed straw imige, and wait till they takes you out and rides you on a rail.”

“Carrots!” yelled the other, who was not gifted greatly with the art of repartee; “who’ll buy carrots?”

“It’s ashamed of yourself you ought to be,” replied Patsy, in a tone of virtuous disgust.

“And why is it ashamed of myself I ought to be?” queried the unsuspecting Micky.

“For going about the country with your ould gran’mother slung over your shoulder,” replied Patsy. “You weren’t so fond of her when she was alive, seein’ you let her die of starvation and ould age, by the look of her.”

This double insult levelled at himself and the goose he was carrying took the wind out of Micky’s sails.

“Who are you talking to?” said he, shifting the goose from his left to his right shoulder, and advancing towards Patsy.

“The son of the ould jackass that grazes on the common, I b’lieve,” replied Patsy, raising his bucket; “though ’tis well known all over the villige he disowns you.”

“Do you see this fist?” cried Micky, shaking a grimy fist in the other’s face.

“I do. Do you see the water in this bucket?”

“I do.”

“Well, taste it!” cried Patsy, flinging it in his face.

The next moment the goose, swung like a club, caught Patsy on the side of the head, nearly stunning him, and the next both boys were rolling on the flags of the yard fighting like cats.

At this moment who should enter the stable-yard but Miss Kiligrew, driving the governess-cart with the children, and at this moment also the kitchen door opened, and Mrs Kinsella appeared to see what was keeping Patsy so long in fetching the water.

CHAPTER VIII
THE BATTLE IN THE YARD

“Separate them!” cried the governess, reining the pony in; whilst little Lord Gawdor, forgetting everything but the fight in progress, clapped his hands, calling out alternately: “Go it, Pipe-stems—give it him, Carrots!” as Patsy or his long antagonist came upwards in the fray. Doris felt frightened, but interested; as for Selina, she was in the bottom of the cart and was fast asleep covered with rugs.

“Separate them!” cried Miss Kiligrew to the cook; “don’t stand there staring—separate them.”

“Faith, it’s easy to say separate them,” answered the cook, highly incensed at Miss Kiligrew’s dictatorial manner. “Separate them yourself.”

Scarcely had she spoken when Patsy by a supreme effort got Micky under, and kneeling on his long arms began to screw his knuckles against the jaws of his victim. The bully had often done the same to smaller boys, but now that the torture was applied to himself he did not like it in the least.

“Who’s the son of the ould dunkey that grazes on the common? Who’s the son of the ould dunkey that grazes on the common?” cried Patsy. “Answer up quick, or I’ll screw you worse. Who’s the son of the ould dunkey that grazes on the common?”

“I am!” screamed Micky, unable to endure the agony. “Let me up—you’re murthering me.”

“Who’s ashamed of his son?” cried Patsy, continuing the torture, and delighted to think that little Lord Gawdor and Miss Doris and the governess were there to listen to it all. “Who’s ashamed of his son?”

“The ould dunkey is!” shrieked Micky. “It’s I that’ll be murthering you some dark night for this.”

“Name the biggest thief in the country,” continued Patsy, undismayed by the other’s threats; “out with his name before the ladies and the gintleman.”

“Micky Finnegan!” roared Micky. “Mrs Kinsella, ma’am, pull him off me!”

“Lave him be, Patsy,” cried Mrs Kinsella, who was enjoying the fun as much as little Lord Gawdor.

“I will in a minit, when I gets his family tree out of him,” replied Patsy. “Answer up, Micky Finnegan—who was your gran’mother?”

“The ould goose,” blubbered Micky, who was now in tears.

“Was she always good to you?”

“She were.”

“Ain’t you ’shamed of yourself for cartin’ her about on your shoulder to sell her when she was dead of ould age and starvation?”

“I am.”

“Did she tell you before she died you weren’t fit to black the boots of Patsy Rooney?”

“She did.”

“Did she spake the truth?”

“She did.”

“Up you get,” said Patsy; “and off with you and ’pologise to your ould father for havin’ such a son.”

He released Micky, who sprang to his feet and tore out of the yard shouting what he wouldn’t do next time he caught Patsy alone on a dark night.

“Bravo, Carrots!” cried Lord Gawdor.

“Bravo, Carrots!” cried Doris, as Patsy, triumphant and grinning with delight, was led off into the kitchen by the ear.

“Robert! Doris!” cried Miss Kiligrew; “what would your grandmother say if she could hear you?”

“I dunno!” replied Lord Gawdor; “but I bet she’d have laughed if she’d heard that long chap saying his grandmother was a goose.”

CHAPTER IX
A FACE AT THE WINDOW

“Here, Patsy,” said Mrs Kinsella, when she had led him back to the kitchen by the ear, “take this broom and away with you to the top of the house and give it to Mary, the second housemaid; you’ll find her on the top landing. Go down the passage and across the big hall and up the big staircase, and be back in a minit, or I’ll scalp you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Patsy, and seizing the broom he started.

He went down the passage, crossed the hall and went up the broad staircase, looking about him and wondering at the splendour of the place.

Poor Patsy, the staircase in his father’s cottage was just a ladder. He had never seen a looking-glass in his life, if we except the bit of broken mirror used by his father as a shaving glass.

The first landing was rather dimly lit, and scarcely had Patsy set foot on it when who should he see directly facing him but a red-headed page-boy with a broom in his hand.

He stared at this apparition for half a second. Then promptly he put his thumb to his nose and extended his fingers; the one in the mirror did the same.

“I’ll larn you to make faces at your betters, you ugly-lookin’ baste!” cried Patsy, his red hair bristling like the back of a wire-haired terrier. He brought his broom to the “present,” the other did likewise; then he charged.

“Glory be to God, what’s that?” cried Mrs Kinsella, as the smash of the great mirror, followed by a wild yell of astonishment, reached her ears.

“I dunno,” replied Jane, the kitchen-maid; “but it sounds like Patsy’s voice.”

During the first few days Patsy made several and desperate attempts to bolt back to the freedom of the woods and life in his father’s cottage. Then all at once he settled down and took to his new life and duties with that adaptability which is part of the basis of the Irish character.

The main cause in this transformation was the influence of the children. Miss Kiligrew, the governess, developing measles on the second morning of Patsy’s initiation, and being removed to the infirmary at Tullagh, the children were left pretty much to their own devices, and the first use they made of their freedom was to make friends with Patsy.

One evening Lord Gawdor having in a fit of exuberance kicked a football through the nursery window, and he and his companions having been placed under arrest, Patsy, the other servants being busy, was deputed to carry them their tea.

It was four o’clock and nearly dark, the wind was rattling at the window (William, the gardener, who did all sorts of odd jobs, had put in a new pane), and the fire was flickering and dancing in the grate and casting moving shadows on the walls.

By this light the man driving the pig to market (he formed the pattern of the nursery wall-paper) always seemed more alive; and if you got drowsy enough and fixed your eyes on him, you might see all sorts of things in fancy round the bend of the road down which he was driving the pig. All the pictures in the world were nothing compared to this old picture on the wall-paper seen at dusk by the flickering light of the fire.

Doris, whose head, according to Miss Kiligrew, was stuffed with “nonsense,” imagined castles and knights in armour and swans floating on lakes round the bend of the road; why, goodness only knows, for the man and the pig were the most commonplace figures on earth. Lord Gawdor imagined a market such as took place every month at Castle Knock; he could not imagine, nearly so well as Doris—that is to say, he could only imagine things he had seen.

When Patsy arrived with the tea-tray, Doris was seated on the hearthrug reading out of a book of Welsh Fairy Tales. Lord Gawdor was seated opposite to her with his knees up to his chin, and Selina, spotless in a new frock, was curled up asleep in the old armchair, a Noah’s Ark book which she had just dropped lying face downwards on the floor by her side.

“I’ve brought you jam,” said Patsy, nodding at a huge pot of plum jam on the tray. “I took it out of the cubberd when Mrs Kinsella’s back was turned. I heard the ould—her ladyship sayin’ to her, ‘You’re not to send them up any jam, Mrs Kinsella, for they’ve misbehaved’ she says.”

“Dear me,” said Doris, “what a pity, for now we won’t be able to eat it.”

“Why not?” asked Lord Gawdor.

“Because grandmamma said we weren’t.”

“She only tould Mrs Kinsella not to send it up,” said Patsy; “she didn’t say a word about your not eatin’ it.”

“I say,” said Lord Gawdor, when Patsy had withdrawn, speaking with his mouth full of bread and jam, “isn’t Patsy a——”

“Brick,” replied Doris; “I should think he was.”

That night Patsy went to bed very well pleased with himself and his new situation. Lady Seagrave, though severe looking, was kind and had taken a fancy to him. He got on very well with old James, the butler, and the other servants; Lord Gawdor, Doris, and Selina had taken to him just as he had taken to them.

He had placed his candlestick on the old deal chest of drawers in his bedroom and was in the act of unhooking his jacket, when a light tap at the window-pane drew his attention.

A face was peeping at him through the window-pane, a pale face surrounded with long hair. It was the face of Con Cogan.

Patsy had during the last few days quite forgotten Con and the housebreaking business; but Con had not forgotten Patsy.

CHAPTER X
THE GHOST CARRIAGE

The boy stood staring at the apparition before him, unable to speak, then he came towards the window; Con was beckoning to him.

“What is it?” said Patsy, speaking close up to the window and in a low voice. “Go away with you, or it’s ruined I’ll be.”

“Faith, it’s worse ruined you’ll be if you don’t open the window,” replied Con’s voice, muffled by its passage through the sash. “Open the window, I want to talk to you. Where’s your respect for your uncle, you spalpeen, to keep him talkin’ to you through a closed window? Up with the sash, and not another word out of your head, or it’s I that will teach you your manners with the end of me blackthorn stick.”

Patsy, trembling all over, undid the latch. Con, as I have said before, had a great hold over him—the hold that wicked people often have over others. Patsy raised the sash, and Con thrust his ugly head into the room.

“Who told you I was here?” said Patsy, his teeth chattering, half from the effect of the cold night wind that entered, making the candle gutter in its socket, half from fear of his uncle.

“Who told me?” replied Con. “Why, who else but Micky Finnegan.”

“I might a’ known the blackguard would serve me that trick,” muttered Patsy. “Bad cess’ to him and his goose, but I’ll be even with him yet”!

Con made no reply; having glanced round the room, he was leaning now on the window-sill with his arms crossed, and his eyes fixed on his nephew with an amused and critical stare.

“Will yiz look at the buttons on him?” said he, as though he were addressing some invisible third person; “and the stripes down his legs like the side of a haddock?” Then suddenly and ferociously: “Aren’t y’ ashamed of yourself for disgracin’ your fam’ly?”

“Disgracin’ me which? Sure, what have I been doin’?” asked Patsy.

“Doin’! You ax me that question, and you standin’ before me all over buttons and stripes. Doin! Cleanin’ dishes and knives is what you’ve been doin’, and you a Rooney, and me a Cogan; going into sarvice, that’s what you’ve been doin’——”

Mr Cogan’s anger suddenly blazed forth, and he made a stretch over the window-sill and tried to land his nephew a “skelp” with the famous blackthorn stick, and fortunately failed.

His anger was not in the least simulated. The Cogans and the Rooneys had always held their heads very high, some of them as high as the gibbet arm of Tullagh, but whatever their history had been it showed no record of menial service. Patsy’s father, by accepting the post of gamekeeper at the Big House, had lowered the family prestige somewhat; but he was forgiven, for a gamekeeper, though he works for his living as a servant, does not wear livery; besides, he is a useful enough sort of relative, when your own living is half gained by poaching.

Con having failed to reach his nephew drew back his stick, smothered his wrath, and resumed his attitude, leaning with his arms crossed on the window-ledge.

He had come to fetch his nephew out of the house for a purpose we will presently see; but if you were to imagine Con doing anything he set about in a straightforward and business-like manner, you would be imagining the impossible.

In the old days, when he had the blacksmith’s shop in Castle Knock, it would take him three times as long to make a horse-shoe or shoe a horse as it would take any other blacksmith in the country.

He would lean on his hammer and discourse on the colour of the horse, on the state of the weather, on anything at all so long as he could hold you in talk, and stave off for a moment doing the work he had before him. He was, like most idle and useless people, as inquisitive as a magpie.

He leaned now on the window-ledge, looking leisurely about him, whilst Patsy, who had skipped into the furthest corner of the room, stood looking at his uncle and shivering, and wishing he would go.

“What’s in them chest of drawers?” said Con, nodding at the old deal chest of drawers on which the candle was burning.

“Nothing,” replied Patsy; “only me ould clothes and a shirt or two Mrs Kinsella has given me.”

“Open the drawer and take out your clothes,” commanded his uncle.

Patsy did as he was bid.

“Now,” said the other, “off with them buttons and stripes and on with the ould things, so that I may forget I’m talkin’ to the disgrace of the fam’ly.”

Patsy did as he was bid, and whilst he was changing Con continued his conversation.

“I suppose,” said he, “there be great preparings going on for the quality.”

“Ay, is there,” replied Patsy, whose mind was much perturbed by the thought of what Con could be “afther,” for he well knew that his uncle had come for some other purpose than simply to stand at the window and talk upon general subjects.

“Pies and puddin’s and all,” went on Con.

“And sham-pane,” added Patsy.

“What’s that?” asked his uncle.

“Stuff in bottles wid gold tops to thim that let’s off like a gun. The ould missis drinks it for dinner every night in her life. Mr James give me a glass of it from the lavin’s of the bottle, and I’d no sooner drunk it than I tumbled down the stairs wid a tray of glasses and smashed every mother’s son of thim.”

“How many bottles does she drink of it?” asked Con, whose estimation of Lady Seagrave rose considerably at this graphic description of her favourite beverage.

“She doesn’t have more than a glass,” replied Patsy; “and she mixes it with Siltzer water.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s water that tastes as if it was full of pins and needles.”

Con mused for a moment on the strange habits of the high and mighty, whilst Patsy, who had changed his clothes, stood waiting for what was to follow. He had not long to wait.

“Come here,” said his uncle, “till I button your coat for you.”

“Sure, it is buttoned,” replied Patsy, who was none too eager to come within reach.

“Come here, till I button it proper, or it’s into the room I’ll be gettin’ to make your tylet for you,” said Con, putting one leg over the window-sill.

Now Con was the biggest coward on earth, and he had all sorts of strange ideas about the law. He would help in a burglary as long as he could do so safely; that is to say, he would urge another man on and give advice, and help to dispose of the plunder, but he was far too careful of his skin to enter a house or take an active part in the matter.

Even now, though he put his leg over the sill of the window, he would not have dared to enter the room, for that would have been housebreaking; but nothing could be done to a man for simply standing at a window and “colloguing” with his nephew. If Mrs Kinsella had appeared armed with a broom he would have run like a scared rabbit; but Patsy did not know this, Patsy took his uncle on his face value, and certainly Con’s face was of more value to him in affairs of this sort than his heart, for his face was the face of a formidable and villainous-looking rogue. Scaring old women and children, sucking eggs, stealing turnips, milking stray cows and trapping rabbits, that was his way of life. Yet he had the appearance of a brigand chief. There are many people in the world like Con.

Patsy took a step towards his uncle; he seemed fascinated, just as a mouse is fascinated by a cat.

“Come on.” said Con, “before I put my other leg over.”

“Sure, what do you want of me at all, at all?” said the unfortunate Patsy, advancing against his will; “what harm have I done you?—what ails—ouch!”

Con had suddenly seized him by the collar of his jacket and dragged him through the window.

“Speak a word, and you’re dead,” said his uncle.

They were in the midst of a clump of laurel bushes that grew almost up to the window.

“Come on now,” whispered Patsy’s uncle, dragging him along by the collar; “I’m not goin’ to hurt a feather of you, but if you scream it’s killed you’ll be. I’ve left the candle burnin’ on the chest o’ drawers, sure it’ll burn itself out. Come on now, and tread gentle.”

They took a path that led them round by the side of the house to the terrace in front.

It was a starlight night, brilliant almost, as if lit by the moon.

Con led the way down the terrace steps, and then, striking across the park, made for the beech woods on the right.

Patsy followed him. They entered the long drive that cut through the woods in the direction of Castle Knock. They had gone scarcely a quarter of a mile down it when a faint, flickering glow amidst the trees on the right became visible, and Patsy, clutching at his uncle’s coat-tail, hung back.

He had heard often enough that the witches had a habit of meeting by night in the woods here about. They would light a fire and make soup in a big pot, and whilst it was boiling they would all sit round and make jokes and tell stories, and their laughter—so the tale went—was enough to turn a man’s hair grey.

“Come on,” said Con; “what are you afeared of?”

“It’s the witches,” said Patsy, in a terrified voice. “Sure, Uncle Con, where’s your eyes that you can’t see the light of their fire, and they sittin’ round it biling babies in pots——”

Con, without answering, seized his nephew by the ear and dragged him along through the trees in the direction of the light. The boy did not mind the pain; it was almost a relief, for it helped to drive the witches from his mind.

A moment later they broke into a little clearing in the midst of which a fire of holly sticks was burning brightly. By the fire sat something as bad, or maybe worse, than a company of witches.

It was Paddy Murphy. He was sitting on a bundle of dried ferns toasting his toes at the burning logs, his old hat without a brim was on the back of his head, and he held a big stick in his hand with which every now and then he gave the burning embers a prod.

“So you’ve brought him,” said Paddy, looking up as Con, leading his nephew by the ear, broke out of the wood into the zone of firelight; “you’ve cocht him alive-o. Faith, but it’s well he’s looking; but what’s become of his buttons and stripes?”

“Faith, he’s left them behind him,” said Con making his nephew sit down on the ground, and sitting down beside him.

“I can’t supply him with buttons,” said Mr Murphy, “but I’ve a large supply of stripes, and I’ll be after dealin’ them out to him right handed if he so much as opens his mouth, or stirs a finger, or does anythin’ but keep his ears wide and listens to my directions. Are yiz listenin’ to me, Patsy Rooney?”

“I am,” said Patsy.

“Well, keep on listenin’ and answer me questions. First and foremost, when’s the quality coming to the Big House?”

“Day after to-morrow,” replied Patsy.

“How many is there?” went on Mr Murphy, prodding the fire meditatively with his stick.

“Dozens of them. I heard Mrs Kinsella sayin’ that a lot of thim was comin’ by spicial train to Tullagh station.”

Tullagh was the nearest railway station to Glen Druid Park, and it was fifteen miles away.

“Did you hear tell of anything else about them?” asked Mr Murphy.

“I heard Mrs Kinsella say——” began Patsy, then he stopped.

“What did you hear her say?”

“Ohone!” wailed Patsy, “sure, I oughtn’t to be tellin’ you——”

Mr Murphy drew a clasp-knife from his pocket, opened it, tried the point on his thumb to see if it were sharp, then, holding Patsy down with one big hand on his chest, he approached the point of the knife to his throat.

“Don’t do it, Paddy!” cried Con, pretending to be alarmed.

“I’ve made up me mind,” said Mr Murphy, “I’ve made up me mind to see the colour of his blood, there’s no use in tryin’ to stop me. I’ve made up me mind to see the colour of his blood.”

At this awful threat Patsy made sure that his last moment had come. He was too frightened to speak or cry out, he just lay staring at the broad, red face of his executioner, or as much as he could see of it, for Mr Murphy’s back was half turned on the fire.

“Tell him, Patsy,” implored Con, “or he’ll have your life.”

Patsy felt the point of the knife tickling his throat.

“It’s the jewels!” shrieked Patsy.

“Which jewels?” asked Mr Murphy. “Quick now, or the knife goes into you.”

“The jewels ould Lady Molyneux’s bringin’ with her worth hundredths of thousands of pounds.”

“Who told you of them?” went on Mr Murphy.

“Mrs Kinsella, no less; she tould the maids and I was listenin’. Ohone! sure, it’s ruined I am!”

“Faith, you never said a truer word, if you don’t tell all you know. Out with it all, before I slits your wizzind.”

“Dimonds and em’ralds and all,” cried Patsy. “They say she do be wearin’ them wherever she goes, and she ould enough to be Mrs Kinsella’s mother.”

“Where does she keep them at night?”

“In a box on her dressin’ table. Mrs Kinsella says she wonders the ould lady hasn’t been robbed before this.”

“Faith, she won’t be wondering that long,” said Mr Murphy, who now having got the information he required, closed his knife and put it in his pocket. “Have you been listenin’ to what your nevy told me, Con Cogan?”

“I have,” said Con.

“Now,” said Mr Murphy, turning to Patsy, whom he had released, and who was sitting up with his hair all towsled and a scared look on his face—“now listen to me, for I’m goin’ to talk bizness. Who locks the big front door at night?”

“Mr James, the butler,” replied Patsy.

“What’s he do with the key?”

“Gives it to the ould missis—her ladyship, I mean, and she puts it under her pilla’.”

“Bad cess to her and her pilla’!” grumbled Mr Murphy; “what makes her go mistrustin’ people like that for? Well, now, the windy’s in front of the house: could you be afther openin’ the latch of one of them for me if I chanst to call some night soon afther the family was in bed to inspict the drains?”

“Sure, every windy in the front of the house is fixed up with wires,” replied Patsy, “so that if you raised one you’d ring a bell and a gun would go off, and you’d be cocht as sure as sartin.”

“Think o’ that now,” said Mr Murphy. He gazed into the fire without speaking whilst Patsy ransacked his mind for more ideas. The front door of Glen Druid was left at night, like most other front doors, bolted and chained with the key in the lock, any one could have opened it from the inside; there were no wires on the front windows except in Patsy’s imagination. Patsy often made blunders in household duties, but he was by no means a fool.

“Think o’ that now,” said Mr Murphy, “the suspicions of thim; faith, you might think there were no honest men in the world at all, at all, by the way some people go on. Now, how about the little scullery window?”

“That’s been screwed up,” said Patsy, “wid screws the length of your arm.”

“Paddy Murphy,” suddenly put in Con, who had been listening to the foregoing.

“What is it, Con Cogan?”

“It’s a fool you are.”

“Howsome, which way?” asked Mr Murphy.

“Can’t we get into the house the same way I got Patsy out to-night?”

“And how was that?”

“Through his bedroom window; it’s on the floor be the ground, and there’s no locks or screws to it, for he opened it to-night for me with a turn of his wrist.”

“Faith, and that simplificates matters,” said Mr Murphy. “And now I’ll draw up me plan of campaign. Patsy Rooney!”

“Yes, Mr Murphy.”

“You be all ears like an elephant whilst I tell you what you’re to be doin’. First and foremost, whin the company arrives you’re to spot the ould lady who has the big jewels. What do you say was her name?”

“Lady Molyneux,” replied Patsy.

“Having spotted her, you’re to find out where she sleeps. Are yiz listenin’?”

“Yes, Mr Murphy.”

“You’re to lie awake every night till the clock strikes twelve. One night in a day or two you’ll hear a tap at your bedroom windy, you’ll open the windy and I’ll come in; then you’ll go foreninst me and lead me to the ould lady’s bedroom. Don’t be thinking it’s her jewels I’m afther, I am only wishful to read tracts to her and see if she’s said her prayers. Now do you understand clear what you’ve got to do?”

“Yes, Mr Murphy.”

“Will yiz swear to do it?”

“Yes, Mr Murphy.”

“Well, then, repeat the form of the oath I’m going to tell you; say it after me sintince by sintince. Are yiz ready?”

“Yes, Mr Murphy.”

“I, Patsy Rooney,” began the other, beating time with his stick, whilst Patsy followed him sentence by sentence, “bein’ in me sound mind and body, hereby swears to do all Mr Murphy bids me to do the uttermost farthin’ wid diligence and despatch. And if I don’t, may me eyes pop out of me head like burnin’ ches’nuts off a hob; may me tongue hang down to me heels and thrail in the dust and be dry ever after for want of a drink, and may me hair turn grey as a badger and fall off, leaving the head of me bald as a coot. May me lift hand be turned into me right hand, me feet twisted backwards, me legs stuck where me arms be, and the nose of me turned to the snout of a pig.”

“Ohone!” wailed Patsy, when he had finished this oath, “sure, it’s ruined I am entirely!” The mental picture of the figure he would cut, should he fail to carry out Mr Murphy’s biddings, stood before his mind’s eye with horrible distinctness.

No other form of oath, perhaps, could have had a more powerful effect on the half-savage mind of the boy.

“That’s what you’ll be if you do a hair’s-breadth beyond what I tell you,” said Mr Murphy. “You’ve swore to it now, and you’ll have to stick to it, or eat ever after out of a trough. And now I’m goin’ to brand you and make a freemason of you, so that you’ll know what’s in store for you if you fails to keep your oath.”

Mr Murphy was not joking in the least; he knew well the effect physical pain has in fixing an impression on the mind. He pulled Patsy’s sleeve up and was in the act of seizing a burning stick from the fire when Con Cogan, who was looking on and grinning, suddenly held up his hand and said:

“Whisht!”

The little clearing in which they were seated was quite close to the broad drive; one could see between the tree-boles anything passing along the drive, and something was coming now.

I have said before that Glen Druid Park was haunted, or reputed so to be. The apparition took the form of a hearse driven by a man without a head. He carried his head under his arm, so the story ran, and, if the head caught sight of any one, straight the driver would make for him, bundle him into the vehicle, drive off with him, and then he would never be seen again.

Several people had seen this terrible thing. Mrs Finnegan’s first husband had been coming across the park one night when he had spied the vehicle in the distance; it was travelling in the opposite direction to that in which he was going, but directly the driver sighted him he had turned, whipped up the horses and started in pursuit. Mr Finnegan ran. He arrived at Castle Knock all covered with mud, and without the bottle of whisky he had been carrying when he started.

He had thrown it away, so he said, and his escape was put down to that fact, as no doubt the driver of the ghostly vehicle had stopped to pick it up. Some people objected that a bottle of whisky could be of no use to a man without a head, but they were overruled by the fact that the bottle was found in the park empty. That clinched the matter.

“Whisht!” said Con, raising his hand.

Mr Murphy paused in his operations, and Patsy, who had just been on the point of crying out, held his breath and listened.

Something was coming along the drive.

Now the sound was more distinct, the foot-falls of a horse and the creakings of a vehicle of some sort could be made out. The thing was coming along slowly.

“It’s the ‘carriage,’” said Con, whose white face had become simply ghastly, “it’s the ‘hearse.’ I just caught a glimpse of the plumes of it away beyant there between the trees; it’s comin’ this way.”

“Lord save us!” said Mr Murphy, whose crimson visage had become mottled with white. “What’s that you’re saying, Con Cogan? Sure, the ghost carriage wouldn’t be makin’ all that nise.”

“Wouldn’t it?” replied Con, whose teeth were chattering. “Tim Finnegan, ’fore he died, told me it rattled like a dunkey-cart when it was chasin’ him, and the fellow that drove it was peltin’ him all the time wid skulls an’ crossbones.”

“I’ve heerd tell he has no power over childer; and if one keeps one’s eyes tight shut, he don’t see you as long as you don’t see him,” said Mr Murphy, “so I’m goin’ to shut me eyes.”

“So’m I,” said Con.

“Patsy, avick,” said Mr Murphy in a softened tone, but without leaving hold of the boy.

“What is it, Mr Murphy?” asked Patsy.

“Keep your eyes wide open and tell us what you see, for he has no power over childer, and he can’t see thim, by the same token, for Father O’Hara tould me so.”

“I will, Mr Murphy.”

Now Patsy, who was half a savage, had a savage’s acute sense of hearing, and, more than that, of knowing what it was he heard. He could tell the movements of a stoat from those of a rabbit. He knew every cart and carriage for miles round by the sound it made, and he knew now quite well that the thing coming along the drive was no ghost carriage, but Tim Brady’s dung-cart, for the left wheel had a squeak of its own that was quite unmistakable.

Mr Brady’s business in life was to collect manure and sell it, and as he had the habit of stopping at public-houses and places on the way home, he was often late in his peregrinations.

“Are your eyes open, Patsy?” said Mr Murphy, who still had a tight hold of the boy.

“They are,” said Patsy, pretending to chatter his teeth; “but it’s tirrified I am, now I see it through the trees. Musha! musha! it’s the ‘carriage’ sure enough, wid the great black plumes of it wavin’, and the chap on the box without a head on his shoulders.”

“Ave Maria, ave Maria, ave Maria!” muttered Mr Murphy, who was a devout Catholic when he was frightened. “Con Cogan, y’ divil, be sayin’ your prayers, or it’s a clip I’ll land you with me stick. Ora pro nobis, save us an’ sanctify us—Patsy, what’s he afther now?”

“I see his head under his arm,” said Patsy, “and the eyes of it glowin’ like the eyes of a moth.”

“I’ve robbed and I’ve stole,” mumbled Mr Murphy. “I’ve treated me wife cruel, I ain’t fit to be—what’s he afther now, Patsy?”

Mr Brady, seeing the glow of the fire amidst the trees, had stopped his cart to inspect.

“He’s stopped the carriage and he’s holdin’ his head up, and the eyes of it glowin’ like lamps.”

“Keep your eyes tight shut, Con,” said Mr Murphy, “and confess your sins same as I’m doin’. Ora pro nobis—I killed M’Carthy wid a clip of a stick, though the crowner’s jury brought it in appeplexy whin they found him in the ditch wid the heels of him stickin’ in the air, but I didn’t mane to do it; I only wanted to rob him. Ora pro nobis—I shot old Mullins in the small o’ the back so that the back buttons of his coat was blown through his wistcoat, but I didn’t mane to do it, for the gun wint off before I could club him on the head with the butt of it. Ora pro nobis, save us and sanctify us! Then there’s the man I kilt at Tullagh fair, and I don’t know his name at all, at all, for there was nothin’ in his purse to identify him by, only two pound and a sheep-dip tablet which I ’et in mistake for a cough drop and nearly burnt a hole in me tongue—bad cess to him! Then there’s the man—what’s he afther now, Patsy?”

“He’s after us!” yelled Patsy, springing to his feet, and shaking himself free from Mr Murphy’s clutch. “Run for your lives—here he comes!”

Next moment Patsy, Mr Murphy and Con were running through the woods, each in a different direction. Patsy could hear the terrified shouts of the others, and he stopped and held on to the trunk of a small beech tree and laughed till the tree shook.

Then he resumed his way back to the Big House at a “sweep’s trot” under the light of the moon that was just rising over the distant hills. His window was still open and the candle had burnt itself out, but the moon gave light enough to get into bed by. Still laughing and chuckling to himself, he got between the sheets.

Suddenly the laughing and the chuckling ceased, for the remembrance of his oath came back to him. He had sworn to open the window for Paddy Murphy, and he well knew that, though Paddy might be frightened enough to-night, all the ghost carriages in the world would not stop him from coming if he had made up his mind to steal the jewels.

When the knock came to the window he would have to open it or go about for ever with the snout of a pig, his legs where his arms were, and his face where the back of his head ought to be. It seems incredible that he should firmly believe in such a happening, yet he did, for he had the Celtic aptitude for belief, and his head was filled with the most wonderful and wild superstitions.

He believed that the holy well at Tullagh would cure warts if you placed your hand in the water. He believed that holy water would drive away devils, and he believed that old Widow Finnegan could think a sick person well if she set her mind to it. He believed in witches and ghosts and banshees and cluricaunes. So it is not, after all, to be wondered at that he believed the oath he had solemnly taken would “fly back on him” if he broke it.

Yet for all his youth and simplicity, Patsy had a quickness of intelligence that many a grown man might have envied. Though he made mistakes at times, a week had converted him into a fairly efficient page-boy; and he could have held his own, with his tongue, against any fish-woman on the quays of the Liffey.

CHAPTER XI
THE FIRST GUEST

“Doris,” said Lord Gawdor, breaking into the schoolroom next afternoon, “Mr Fanshawe is comin’ to-day!”

“Don’t say ‘comin’,” replied Doris, looking up from her book; “say ‘coming.’ It’s only the Johnny-jumped-ups that clip their words; I heard Uncle Molyneux saying so.”

“Who are they?”

“Oh, brewers and shipowners and people,” said Doris with fine contempt. “Who’s Mr Fanshawe?”

“I dunno. I heard Mrs Kinsella say he was a cousin of father’s, and I heard Mary, the between-maid, telling Biddy Mahony he was coming to-day. He’s coming for Christmas, and he’s bringing a lot of horses. Rest of the people are coming to-morrow, but Mr Fanshawe’s been staying with some people hunting forty miles away, and he’s going to drive over.”

“Wonder what he’ll be like? I say, isn’t it rubbish us being stuck up here like this!”

“Let’s send a round-robin to granny to ask her to let’s come down,” suggested Lord Gawdor.

“You don’t know granny!” replied Doris, subsiding into the book she was reading.

They were still prisoners confined to the upper part of the house, and they would have to remain prisoners till the next morning, for their grandmother was an old lady who never went back on her word.

At this moment a knock came to the door, and Patsy entered with a coal-scuttle full of coal.

Patsy, as a rule was a bright-looking boy, enough, but this afternoon his face was very lugubrious and his hair looked tousled. It was always like that when anything, to use his own expression, “addled” him; no brushing would keep it down, it stuck out in all directions. Patsy’s hair was a sort of weather-glass from which you could tell the state of his mind; when angry or fighting it seemed to bristle just as the back of a wire-haired terrier bristles; when he was “addled” it stuck out “every which way” as Mrs Kinsella once said.

“Hullo, Patsy!” cried Lord Gawdor. “What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you go and brush your hair?”

“Bob!” said Doris, “don’t be personal.”

“Patsy don’t matter,” replied Lord Gawdor.

“Sure, Mrs Kinsella has been brushin’ at it for an hour, Misther Robert,” said Patsy, putting his coal box down. “‘What ails you?’ says she, ‘for it’s more like a broom than a page-boy you are this mornin’,’ says she. ‘Sure, it’s addled I am,’ says I.”

“What has addled you, Patsy?” asked Doris.

“Dhrames, Miss Doris.”

“What were the dreams, Patsy?”

“I dhreamt I let robbers into the house through the bedroom windy,” replied Patsy in a faltering voice. “Miss Doris, what would they be afther doin’ to me if I did a thing like that?”

“They would hang you, Patsy,” replied Doris in a cheerful voice.

“Ohone!” cried the unfortunate Patsy, as if he were addressing some third person, “listen to that?—sure, it’s hanged I’d be. Miss Doris!”

“Yes, Patsy?”

“If I was goin’ about wid me legs where me arums ought to be, and me face twisted back to front, and me nose turned into a pig’s snout—for I dhreamt I was like that in me dhrame—what would I do for a livin’ at all, at all?”

“I don’t know,” said Doris, trying to conjure up an occupation for a person so peculiarly situated and failing. “But you aren’t going to be like that, so don’t think about it.”

“Miss Doris,” said Patsy, who listened to this advice without relaxing in the least the lugubrious expression on his face, “whin’s the ould lady all covered wid jewels comin’?”

“Which old lady? What on earth do you mean, Patsy?”

“Ould Lady Molyneux,” replied Patsy; “I’ve heard tell she’s all stuck over wid jewels like the plums on a puddin’!”

“She’s coming to-morrow, I believe,” said Doris. “And you are not to speak in that disrespectful way of a lady!”

“I’m not wishin’ to be disrespectful, Miss Doris; but I dhreamt last night Paddy Murphy had broke into the house.”

“Who is he?”

“A highwayman, Miss Doris; and he had the ould lady on the floor and was prizin’ the jewels off her wid the point of his knife same as you prize barnacles off a rock down by the say-side.”

Lord Gawdor gave a howl of laughter. He was not in love with his Aunt Molyneux, and the picture of her as imagined by Patsy tickled his fancy immensely.

Patsy, seeing him laugh, grinned in a half-hearted fashion and scratched his head.

“Miss Doris,” said he, looking up from the toes of his boots which he had been contemplating and still grinning, not from merriment, but as if the grin had stuck to his face and would not come off, “couldn’t you tell the ould lady to keep away, for it’s afear’d I am that the dhrame will come true.”

“I wish I could,” said Doris whole-heartedly; then, remembering to whom she was speaking: “Don’t talk nonsense. It’s very wicked to be superstitious and believe in dreams—besides, dreams always come contrary; if you dream of a wedding some one is sure to die, and if you dream a person is dead, it’s a sign they are going to be married——”

“I say,” said Lord Gawdor, who had climbed on to the window-seat, “come here.”

Doris came to the window. An outside car piled with luggage was coming across the park along the drive. On one side of the car sat the driver, on the other a young gentleman in a Norfolk jacket and a shooting cap; he had a pipe in his mouth.

It was the first of the expected guests.

“It’s Mr Fanshawe,” said Doris. “Isn’t he nice-looking!”

“Look, there’s two gun-cases,” said Lord Gawdor. “My eye! wonder where his horses are?”

“He couldn’t bring his horses on the car with him,” said Doris.

“Who said he could, stupid?” replied his lordship, pushing the window up.

CHAPTER XII
MR FANSHAWE

Dicky Fanshawe, as every one called him, was twenty-five years of age. He had enough money to do what he liked, and so, as a rule, he did nothing; at least, that was what his uncle, General Grampound, said about him. But as a matter of fact, he did a great deal, for wherever he went he made people feel happier and better.

He was not what people call a “good young man.” He spent a great deal of money in ways that people said he shouldn’t, but he also spent a great deal of money in a way that nobody knew anything about, for he was always ready to help a person in distress. He was a dead shot, a great cricketer, and he nearly always was in the first flight in the hunting field.

General Grampound, Dicky’s uncle, was very strict; ever since Dicky had been a boy General Grampound had found fault with him. Six months ago they had had a really fierce quarrel; it had begun over some trifle, hot words had ensued, and it ended by the General telling his nephew never to darken his doors again.

This command would not have broken Dicky’s heart, indeed he would have cared very little about it, only that he was in love with General Grampound’s ward, a dark-haired, beautiful girl named Violet Lestrange.

He had not seen her for six months, and as General Grampound intercepted all his letters to her, he could not write to her.

To-day he had left Dunboyne House, where he had been staying for the hunting, at ten o’clock, and it was nearly four when the outside car turned in through the lodge gates of Glen Druid.

As the car drew up towards the house front, Mr Fanshawe heard himself hailed. The voice seemed to come from the sky, and, looking up, he saw two heads projecting from a window in the grey old side of the house, the head of a girl with golden hair and the head of a rather pasty-faced little boy.

“Hulloo!” cried the heads; and an arm, presumably that of the boy, waved something by way of a flag, something that seemed either a huge and dirty pocket-handkerchief or an old dish-cloth.

“Hulloo!” replied Mr Fanshawe, waving his pipe.

Next moment a small potato, which Lord Gawdor had been playing desert islands[^[1]] with, caught Mr Fanshawe on the shoulder, and, rebounding, hit the car driver on the nose.

“Bad cess to them childer!” said the driver. “They’re the divil and all; never aisy but whin they’re aslape, I’ve heard tell.”

“They’re all there, aren’t they?” said Mr Fanshawe, as the car drew up at the steps. “Might have been worse if they’d fired turnips on us. Cousin Robert’s kids, I suppose.”

He jumped off the car and went up the steps, where old James, the butler, was waiting to receive him.

[1]. A chalk ring on the nursery floor makes the island.

Lady Seagrave was a great friend of General Grampound’s, but she had not seen Dicky Fanshawe since he was a boy at school.

“Her ladyship is waiting to receive you in the blue boudoir, sir,” said old James; “but O Mr Fanshawe”—he looked with horror at the pipe which Dicky had laid on the hall table—“O Mr Fanshawe, her ladyship can’t a-bear pipes!”

“Never mind,” replied Dicky, lightly, hanging up his hat; “she can smoke cigars, if she prefers them.”

“I haven’t seen you for twelve years, Mr Fanshawe,” said the old man. “Last time I seen you was when you were a boy from school; how you have grown, to be sure! But it ain’t a question of cigars—her ladyship has a horror of all tobacco; and when gentlemen are here as are addicted to smokin’ they has to smoke in the scrubbery.”

“Where on earth’s that?” asked Dicky.

“Under the trees at the side o’ the house, sir.”

“Oh, the shrubbery you mean. All right—yes, I remember you well, James. Twelve years ago—why, it seems a thousand years ago since I paid that visit to Wapshot Park with the General—you were butler then too. Do you remember the day I tumbled out of the apple tree into the horse pond, and came home without any shoes and all covered with mud?”

“That I do, sir,” said James, grinning at the recollection; “and the face the General pulled when he saw you. This way, sir.”

Lady Seagrave was seated by the fire in the boudoir just as we saw her on the day Patsy Rooney made her acquaintance.

“How you have grown!” said the old lady, when she had shaken hands with her visitor and motioned him to a seat on the opposite side of the fireplace. “The last time I saw you, you were in knickerbockers and a turned-down collar. I hope you have grown in wisdom as well as in stature. You will find the house rather dull to-day, I’m afraid, but it will be more lively to-morrow, for I am expecting a house-party of quite interesting people.”

“I saw some jolly-looking kids at one of the windows upstairs,” said Mr Fanshawe. “Cousin Robert’s, I suppose.”

“Kids!” cried the old lady, raising her ear-trumpet. “I have an abhorrence of goats; how did they get into the house?”

“I didn’t mean goats’ kids, I meant children.”

“Umph!” replied Lady Seagrave. “May I beg you to say in future what you mean? It abbreviates conversation, and places the matter under discussion in a more clear light.”

“I am awfully sorry,” said Dicky; “but”—speaking very loudly and distinctly—“I saw some nice-looking children looking out of a window upstairs; I suppose they are Cousin Robert’s kids—I beg your pardon—I mean children.”

“I am not deaf,” replied the old lady testily, “but I can’t hear a word when people shout at me. I use this trumpet because I am subject to tinnitus aurium. Now repeat your remark in an ordinary conversational tone, enunciate your syllables, and don’t shuffle your feet.”

“I saw some nice-looking kids—I beg your pardon—I mean I saw some——”

“There is nothing to beg my pardon about,” cut in Lady Seagrave. “Well, go on; what were you going to say—you saw some kids. Where did you see them, and what about them?”

“I saw them on the road,” said Dicky desperately, for he felt quite beyond trying to explain his real meaning.

“That’s right,” said Lady Seagrave in a soothed voice. “Speak at that pitch and I will be able to hear you. You saw these creatures on the road—well, what were they doing?”

“I don’t know,” replied Mr Fanshawe meekly; “they were—being driven by a man.”

“Yes, but what about them?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I say—what about them?”

“Nothing, I only mentioned the fact.”

“I see, just to make conversation. The art of conversation is lost, it seems to me; when I think of the sparkle and wit of the conversation of the young men of my day, and contrast it with the conversation of the young men of to-day, I am lost in wonder at what has happened to their brains. Your remark would be interesting if I were a goat fancier, which I am not. But you were never very bright, Richard Fanshawe, even as a boy; I remember that.”

“Thanks,” said Dicky, rather huffled, yet still amused at the outspoken old lady, who, when she took a pen in her hand to write an invitation, was most courtly and kind in her manner of expression (vide her note in first chapter of this book), but whose tongue in conversation was direct.

“All the brains in your family,” went on Lady Seagrave, “seems to have been absorbed by your uncle, General Grampound. You will see him to-morrow——”

“Good gracious!” said Dicky, “is uncle coming here?”

“Yes, he is coming as one of my guests.”

“Is—Is—Miss Lestrange coming with him?”

“She is.”

“Oh!” said Dick in a delighted voice.

“I beg your pardon—what did you say?”

“I only said Oh!”

“Oh what?”

“Nothing—I meant nothing.”

“You could not have meant less. Yes, Miss Lestrange is coming; and Mr Boxall, the Member of Parliament, who is greatly enamoured of Miss Lestrange, is coming too. He is worth seven thousand a year, and I believe, if I have any eyes in my old head, she returns his passion.”

Mr Fanshawe groaned.

“How old is he?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Mr Boxall.”

“He is only fifty-five,” replied Lady Seagrave; “though the fact of premature baldness adds perhaps to his apparent age. But Violet Lestrange is not frivolous-minded, she can appreciate true worth; and,” finished the old lady grimly, “she has got to marry him, for I have set my heart on the match.”

“I suppose you know that I have had a fight with my uncle,” said Dicky in a cheerful voice, for the description of Mr Boxall’s personal appearance had raised his spirits wonderfully.

“Yes,” replied Lady Seagrave, “and that is why I asked you here. I want you to make up with him and be friends. Now, like a good boy, go and brush your hair and make yourself tidy. You can amuse yourself in the library with books till dinner-time; I feel sleepy, and want to take my afternoon nap.”

The old lady seemed still to imagine Dicky Fanshawe the schoolboy he was twelve years ago, and he, nothing loth, rose and made for the door. In the hall outside he found Patsy Rooney.

“Mr James told me to ax you for the keys of your trunks, sir,” said Patsy.

“Oh, he did, did he? Well, as I’m going to my room I’ll open my trunks, as you call them, myself. Go on before me and show me the way. What’s your name?”

“Patsy Rooney is me name,” replied the other, leading the way upstairs, “but they calls me Patsy for short. I clanes the boots and the windys, and looks afther the childer since the governess was took sick and wint off to the infirmary wid the maisles.”

“What on earth is the maisles?” asked Mr Fanshawe.

“It’s what the pigs get,” replied Patsy, leading the way down the corridor, “whin they come out all over spots.”

“Oh, the measles, you mean?”

“That’s thim,” said Patsy, pausing at a door and opening it. “This is your room, Misther Fanshawe; and there’s hot wather in that big blew jug forninst you on the wash-stand.”

“You just wait and help me to unpack,” said Dicky. “My man sprained his foot, and I had to leave him behind. Here, lug that portmanteau out from the wall, till I open it.”

Patsy did as he was bidden, and then stood by watching the proceedings.

“Mr Fanshawe, sir,” said Patsy, after a moment’s silence, “is there guns in thim boxes?”

“Which boxes?”

“Thim flat ones by the windy.”

“Yes; those are gun-cases.”

“Mr James said they were; but, sure, they must be mighty small guns to be put in little boxes like thim. Me father’s the gamekeeper, but wan of his guns is twiced the length of wan of thim boxes.”

“I daresay; but these are breech-loaders, and take to pieces. How does your father load his guns, Patsy?”

“He rams the stuff down the muzzle wid a ramrod. And by the same token, there’s a parcel of ca’tridges for you, sir, I brought over from Castle Knock a week ago. They’re in the kitchen, I b’leve.”

“Yes, I ordered them to be sent on here. Put these shirts in that drawer.”

“Mr Fanshawe, sir,” said Patsy, as he put the shirts in the drawer, “would yiz like to have a shot at a burglar?”

“I shouldn’t mind,” replied Mr Fanshawe. “Stick this coat on the chair over there. What has put burglars in your mind?”

“I dunno,” replied Patsy, grinning and scratching his head; “but I dhrimt there was burglars in the house last night, and, thinks I to meself just now, if you was to stick a ca’tridge in wan of thim guns you might have fine sport some night soon, and Paddy Murphy’s back buttons might be blown through his wistcoat same as he blew old Mullins’.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” asked Mr Fanshawe. “Who is Paddy Murphy—here, stick those trousers on the chair with the coat—and who is old Mullins?”

“I dunno,” replied Patsy, placing the trousers on the coat; “it’s me dhrames that do be addlin’ me. But if me dhrames come true it’s fine shootin’ you’ll be havin’ some night wid all thim guns, and it’s I that’ll be givin’ you the word whin to be loadin’ thim.”

“Here, get along!” said Mr Fanshawe, opening a hunting kit-bag. “Put these shirts in that top drawer, and don’t be talking nonsense; put these waistcoats in with the shirts.”

“The hounds meet to-morra at Castle Knock. I s’pose you’ll be afther followin’ thim, sir,” said Patsy, as he placed the waistcoats in the drawer.

“I will,” replied Mr Fanshawe. “What time’s the meet?”

“Nine o’clock, sir; and there’s a big baste of a fox in the Galtee woods where they’re goin’ to draw, wid a white tip to his tail, as ’ill go like clock-work, for I set me eyes on him on’y a wake ago whin I was settin’ snares the day before they stuck me in buttons and made a page-boy of me.”

“How do you like being page-boy?” asked Mr Fanshawe, who was working at the unpacking of his things in his shirt sleeves and, despite James’s warning, with a cigarette in his mouth.

“Faith,” said Patsy, “if it wasn’t for the childer it’s back to the woods I’d be to-morrow, for it’s nothing but ‘Patsy’ here and ‘Patsy’ there, and ‘Patsy, ye divil, what are you standin’ idle for?’ if I stops to rest me bones for the quather of a minit. Sure, it’s twelve pair of hands on the ends of me arms I’d want to plaze Mrs Kinsella; but as for the childer, faith, anything plazes thim.”

“So you’re acting as nursery governess as well as page-boy,” said Mr Fanshawe, who was beginning to perceive that Patsy was a person of an original disposition, and not at all a page-boy of the ordinary type.

Patsy grinned.

“They’re in prizen,” said he.

“Who are in prison?” asked Mr Fanshawe.

“The childer.”

“Why, what are you talking about? I saw them looking out of a top window.”

“Faith, and they’re in prizen all the same,” said Patsy. “That was the windy Mr Robert kicked the futball through; and between that and Miss Doris hittin’ me a belt on the nose wid an arringe, the ould lady gave orders they wasn’t to stir out of the top of the house till to-morrow mornin’.”

Mr Fanshawe, remembering the potato that had hit him on the shoulder, began to form ideas of his own about the children of his cousin Robert.

“They must find it rather dull,” he said.

“Not they,” replied Patsy. “They always find something to be afther; on’y half an hour ago when I lift them they were settin’ the dolls’ house afire wid a tin of paraffin.”

“Good Heavens! You don’t mean to say you let them!”

“Oh, they’re all right,” said Patsy. “Sure, they had it on the hearthstone.”

That evening, just before bedtime, the schoolroom door opened and Patsy’s head appeared.

“Mr Fanshawe’s give me half a crown,” said he. “And he’s got lave for the both of yiz to go to the meet to-morra mornin’ in the cart. I’m to drive you.” He put the half-crown in his eye like an eye-glass, drew the corners of his mouth almost up to his eyes by some extraordinary muscular action known to himself alone, protruded his tongue, waggled it from side to side and vanished, just in time to escape a Principia Latina aimed at him by Lord Gawdor.

CHAPTER XIII
THE MEET OF THE HOUNDS

The next morning was dull and grey, with not a trace of frost—an ideal hunting morning.

The meet was fixed for nine o’clock at the cross-roads, by the village of Castle Knock; and at eight you might have seen Bob Mahony, the sweep, clattering down the main street of Castle Knock in his donkey-cart, his face washed and shining, so that you would never have known he was a sweep, only for the traces of soot round the back of his ears and the nape of his neck that the towel had failed to reach.

He always turned out for a meet of the hounds. His donkey was a tiny mouse-coloured beast, the quickest and the wickedest donkey in the county. “Game as a tarrier,” to use Bob’s expression, “and not to hold or bind when she hears the hounds giving lip.”

He drew up at the sign-post that is set at the cross-roads, and he had scarcely got down to put the nose-bag on the donkey, to keep her “aisy,” when over the fields, from the direction of Tullagh, taking the low stone walls in his strides, came Billy the Buck.

A meet of the hounds without Billy the Buck would have been a function robbed of most of its picturesqueness and colour.

He was a dark gipsy-looking personage, in an old red waistcoat with tarnished brass buttons; he lived in hayricks and such places, caught rats, sold rabbit skins, trapped moles, did a bit of petty thieving when times were bad, and a bit of poaching whenever he could get the chance. He followed the hounds on foot, and was always in at the death, for he could run like a hare and jump like a horse. He was “near seven fut”—that is to say, he measured six feet six, and, to use the local expression, he was as “thin as a barber’s pole.”

“The top of the marnin’ to you!” cried Billy, vaulting over the low stone wall separating the road from the fields.

“Oh, it’s yourself, is it?” said the sweep. “And what’s the news?”

“There’s an ould grey dog-fox in Rafferty’s Clump,” cried Billy. “He’s the wan that took earth at Kilgobbin last year, whin Mr Moriarty broke his back over the sunk fence beyant Highberries Barn; I knowed him by the ring on his tail and the thrap mark on his lift shoulder, where the hair’s grown a different colour. ‘Good-marnin,’ says I, whin I see him ten minits ago. ‘It’s you that’ll be sweepin’ the country-side with your brush before you’re an hour older, or me names not Billy the Buck,’ I says. And with that he livels it at me like a gun, and into the bushes he pops, with his eye over his shoulder at me. Who’s this comin’ on the big brown horse?”

“One of the quality from the Big House,” replied the sweep, as Mr Fanshawe, in spotless pink and mounted on a superb hunter, turned the corner of the road from Glen Druid.

After Mr Fanshawe, and some way behind, came the governess-cart driven by Patsy.

Now along all the four roads horsemen could be seen converging towards Castle Knock cross. All sorts of nags, good, bad, and indifferent, ridden by all sorts of people, small farmers, sporting squireens from Tullagh, a sprinkling of gentry, so that in five minutes the space of the cross-roads presented a lively enough picture; and you could scarcely hear yourself speak, for every one seemed to know every one else, and the shouting and the laughing was enough to have raised the old malefactors who for centuries had been buried at the cross-roads with stakes through their middles.

Suddenly the talking and the laughing ceased, for away down the road leading to Kilgobbin might be seen the hounds coming along like a moving furze bush and the pink-clad figures of the master and the two whips.

“Here they come!” cried Patsy, who had been endeavouring to keep the hog-maned pony from the vicious attentions of the sweep’s donkey. “Misther Mahony, will yiz keep your dunkey to yourself, for he’s tryin’ to bite the pony’s nose off. Miss Doris, sit back a bit and trim the cart, for it’s kickin’ us in flinders he’ll be if the shoulderstrap presses too hard on him.”

Patsy was well able to drive; for the matter of that, he could sit a horse bare-backed that many a good horseman could not sit saddled. It was the proudest moment of his life to be driving Lord Gawdor and Miss Doris (Selina was not of the party, having developed a snuffling cold during the night); and his satisfaction was not decreased by the fact that Widow Finnegan’s son was present.

The latter was leaning against the sign-post, and every now and then his evil eye would fall upon the governess-cart and Patsy, and he would address some remark to the two boys he was talking to, boys as ill-looking as himself, and then the three would burst into a guffaw of laughter.

“It’ll be a bad year this for the crops, Mr Rafferty,” cried Patsy, addressing a stout farmer on a skew-bald nag a few yards away, and speaking in such a loud voice that every one could hear him, Micky Finnegan included.

“And how’s that, Patsy?” asked the farmer, touching his hat to Lord Gawdor and Doris.

“All the scarecrows have struck bisiness,” said Patsy, nodding towards Micky and his followers. “Not that it matters much, for the crows had ceased to be afeared of them.”

“Dustpans and brums!” yelled Micky to an acquaintance across the road. “Mr Moriarty, will you lend me a dustpan and brum?”

“Faith,” said Patsy, still addressing Mr Rafferty, “it’s the first time in me life I’ve ever heard rubbish cryin’ out for a broom. Sure, it’s late in the day he is, for he ought to have been swep’ up long ago.”

“Patsy,” said Mr Fanshawe, ranging up beside the governess-cart, “what are you doing? Remember who you are driving.”

“Don’t stop him, Mr Fanshawe,” said little Lord Gawdor; “he’s always giving that long boy no end beans—cheeky beast!”

All further discussion was cut short by the arrival of the hounds, and the master, Mr O’Farrell of Tuffnell Park.

The whips consulted for a moment with the master, and then the second whip conferred with Billy the Buck. The result of this conference was that the master resolved to draw Rafferty’s Clump, where the old grey dog-fox with the ring on his tail was supposed to be.

Rafferty’s Clump is a huge spinny; it forms part of the Galtee woods. There are not many trees in the Galtee woods; it is a great space of barren country, with here and there an isolated copse. The horsemen moved off down the road, following the master and the hounds, and the governess-cart and donkey-cart followed in the crush.

“Mind your manners!” cried Patsy, as the sweep’s donkey-cart jostled the “tub,” as the governess-cart was sometimes called. “There’s no hurry; they won’t be needin’ you yet awhile to frighten the fox out of the wood.”

“Dunkeys is particular fond of carrots,” replied Mr Mahony, making veiled reference to Patsy’s unfortunate head.

“Faith, then,” said Patsy, “if I’d known that, I’d have brought some in me pocket for the pair of yiz.”

The procession paused whilst a gate was opened, and then the whole field streamed over a stretch of broken country, in the direction of Rafferty’s Clump.

“Billy,” cried Patsy to Billy the Buck, who was trotting beside the “tub,” touching his hat now and then whenever he caught Lord Gawdor’s eye, “is there a fox in the clump?”

“Ould dog-fox, grey as a badger,” replied Billy, “thrap-marked on the shoulder, wid a ring to his tail.”

“White ring?” asked Patsy.

“Crame-white.”

“I know him as well as me own brother,” said Patsy. “Mr Fanshawe, sir.”

“What is it?” asked Mr Fanshawe, who was riding close to them.

“It’s the ould fox that broke Mr Moriarty’s back. If he breaks to the aist he’ll be off to Kilgobbin, and mind the sunk fence beyant Highberries Barn; if he breaks to the west the divil won’t stop him till he gets to the big stone wall beyant the river. He’ll have to strike up it half a mile to get to the hole in it, and thin he’ll strike across the twinty acres, sure, for it’s the earths in the Tullagh woods he’ll be makin’ for; so I’ll give yiz the word, and if you hear me shout ‘Tullagh,’ send your man wid your second horse to the Tullagh cross-roads to meet you.”

“You seem to know the lie of the country, Patsy,” said Mr. Fanshawe, who had drawn rein, and was sitting listening to the querulous yapping of the dogs busy in the wood.

“I’ve follied the hounds ever since I was the height of me knee,” replied Patsy. Then: “Hurroo! hurroo! he’s broke away to the west. ‘Tullagh’ whoop. Hould tight, Miss Doris, and we’ll follow thim to the rise.”

The fox had broken away to the west, going, to use Patsy’s expression, like a railway train.

Doris had need to follow Patsy’s advice and “hould tight,” for the “tub” was racing the donkey-cart for the rise, an elevation from which the whole sweep of the country round could be viewed.

“There they go!” cried Patsy, as Punch, the pony, drew up puffing and blowing and all of a lather. “Look, Mr Robert! Sure, it makes me ache in the legs to see them and not to be wid them.”

The field had spread out like a fan. One horse having stepped in a rabbit hole and flung its rider, was following the chase at its own sweet will with bridle streaming and empty saddle.

Away from the ruck and leading by a good distance, one could see the master, the whips and Mr Fanshawe; behind these, but not so far behind, a thing like an animated flail; this was Billy the Buck, who, not being afraid of rabbit’s holes, and knowing the boggy bits and other pitfalls, managed to hold his own, and would manage so to do till the end of the day. After him came the other mounted folk, and after them, at the heel of the hunt, all sorts of running ragamuffins.

The “tub” and Mr. Mahony’s donkey-cart being the only wheeled vehicles, were alone in their glory on the rise.

Mr Mahony was standing up in his cart making audible comments on the run, a sooty pipe an inch long in his mouth.

“He’s doubled!” suddenly yelled Patsy. “He’s afear’d of the river; it’s Killbegg he’ll be making for, and we’ll cotch a sight of them on the road if we can get there in time.”

“I’ll race yiz to the gate,” cried Mr Mahony, sitting down plump in his cart and plucking up the head of his donkey whilst he hit it a whack with the blackthorn stick he carried for a whip. “A hundred to one I get there first, and the divil take the hindmost. Hurroo!”

“Hurroo!” yelled Patsy. “Go it, Punch! Hould tight, Miss Doris—don’t be afear’d—we’ll be all right if the wheels hold and he doesn’t stick his fut in a rabbit hole. Hi! hi! hi! Sut-bags! drive fair, and don’t be crowdin’ me—we’re over—we ain’t—Holy Mary! the springs are goin’—hould on by your teeth, we’re comin’ to a trinch!”

Now, along the Tullagh road at this minute was coming a waggonette containing the first contingent of the guests from England, arrived only an hour ago at Tullagh station, and on their way to Glen Druid.

There were four people in the waggonette. General Grampound, an old gentleman, with a white moustache and a red face, sat in one corner. One could tell at a glance what he was; Nature and his profession had labelled him plainly: “Old East Indian general—peppery—this side up—don’t touch.”

By General Grampound sat his ward, Violet Lestrange, a pretty girl, with dark hair and blue eyes.

Opposite General Grampound sat Uncle Molyneux, a very aristocratic-looking, middle-aged person who wore an eye-glass and a waxed moustache.

Opposite Violet Lestrange sat Mr Boxall, the Member of Parliament, who looked as if he had swallowed a Blue Book and had not finished digesting it.

Mr Boxall had a large white face, but the most peculiar thing about him was his eyes. The pupil of his left eye was about twice the size of the pupil of the right eye. It had also a cold and steadfast stare, for it was made of glass. This glass eye of Mr Boxall’s was what is called an open secret; every one knew of it, but no one mentioned it openly. On account of it, old ladies, when they spoke of him, called him “poor Mr Boxall.”

The stone wall of the road was so low that the race between the donkey-cart and the “tub” could be clearly seen by the people in the waggonette.

“Why, God bless my soul!” said Uncle Molyneux, screwing his eye-glass tight in his eye and half standing up so as to get a better view, “I believe it is my nephew and niece.”

“They’ll be over!” cried Violet Lestrange, who was also half standing up. “Look! look! the pony is running away.”

“Who’s that ruffian in the donkey-cart?” cried General Grampound. “They are racing him—the pony has not run away; I see the boy beating it with the whip. Hi, you, sir! you in the donkey-cart—I’ll give you in charge of the police.”

“It’s little he cares about the police,” said the driver of the waggonette, who was also following the race with interested eyes. “That’s Bob Mahony, the chimbly sweep, and he’s been to the meet of the houn’s, for his face is washed. Look! he’s gainin’ on the pony carridge—Ten to one on the dunkey!—ten to one on the dunkey! Lather her, Bob, lather her! They’re makin’ who’ll get through the gate first. He’ll do it! He won’t! He will, be jabers—Hurroo!”

The donkey-cart having outstripped the “tub,” was passing through the gate triumphant and victorious, when the right wheel caught the post and over it went, sweep, cart, donkey and all.

The driver of the waggonette drew the vehicle up and got down, heedless of General Grampound or anything else, and approached the wreckage on the road.

“Are yiz kilt, Bob Mahony?” asked the driver, bending down with his hands on his knees and staring at the prostrate figure in the road.

“Faith, I dunno yet,” said the figure, sitting up and putting one hand to the top of its head. “Me head’s on, but I seems to have left me intellicts in the field beyant.”

“Feel your legs to see if they’re bruck,” commanded the driver.

“Legs is all right,” replied Mr Mahony, feeling them contemplatively; “back’s all right, and arums. I’ll be on me pins again in a minit when the wheels has done spinnin’ in me head.”

“Right y’are,” replied the other. “I’ll be after getting the dunkey on her feet.”

General Grampound, furious with anger at being stopped, had been aiming himself like a gun now at Mr Mahony, now at the driver, now at the donkey lying on its side on the road, but he had withheld his fire. Patsy’s red head (he had lost his cap) as the “tub” made its appearance in the gateway, served as a target, however, and he let fly.

“Hi, you, boy,” cried General Grampound, “you, boy, with the red head—how dare you disgrace your livery, sir, racing sweeps in donkey-carts and blocking my road!”

One might have fancied that the road, the stone walls, the earth and the sky were the property of General Grampound. As a matter of fact, he had less to do with the matter than Uncle Molyneux; but Uncle Molyneux was a placid, and easygoing person, who if the sky had fallen would not have been much put out, as long as the pieces did not hit him, and he was quite content to sit still, observe matters through his eye-glass, and let General Grampound do the shouting.

“Why, it’s Uncle Molyneux!” cried Lord Gawdor, as Patsy engineered the “tub” through the gate, avoiding the donkey and cart, which were now on their respective legs and wheels.

Uncle Molyneux nodded; but before he could speak, Miss Lestrange, who had got out of the waggonette, approached the “tub.”

“How you have grown, Doris! and you too, Bob. Don’t you remember me? What a jolly little cart; have you room for me? I think I will drive the rest of the way with you. It’s not far from here, is it?”

“Only a mile or two,” replied Doris. “Yes; do get in, there’s lots of room; isn’t there, Patsy?”

“Hapes, miss,” replied Patsy, who was smouldering with anger at the General’s reference to the colour of his head.

“But is it safe?” asked Mr Boxall, who had also descended from the waggonette. “Think, my dear Miss Lestrange, if there was another accident! Would it not be safer for me to drive you if you are determined to go in this vehicle? The children could find accommodation in the waggonette.”

“No, thanks,” said Miss Lestrange; “it is just the children I want to talk to.”

“Come on, Boxall,” cried the General; “we can’t stick here all day. Let her do what she likes—always will have her own way. Drive on.”

The waggonette and its contents drove on, and Miss Lestrange got into the “tub.”

Just as they were starting a big closed carriage drove by following in the direction of the waggonette. It contained Lady Molyneux, her maid, her pug dogs, and her jewel-case.

“We’ve been to the meet of the hounds,” explained Lord Gawdor. “That was Bob Mahony, the sweep, we were racing. He beat us, but he wouldn’t have beat us if he’d driven fair. I say, who was that gentleman with the big white face who wanted to drive you?”

“That was Mr Boxall,” said Miss Lestrange.

“He seemed awfully sweet on you,” said Lord Gawdor. “What’s the matter with his eyes?”

“I don’t know,” replied Miss Lestrange, blushing, “He’s—a Member of Parliament.”

“Oh, I remember,” said Lord Gawdor. “I heard granny telling Mrs O’Farrell that poor Mr Boxall was coming on a visit, and that he’d got a glass eye. Miss Lestrange!”

“Yes, Bob?”

“Which of his eyes is glass?”

“I don’t know,” replied Miss Lestrange. “Let us talk of something else. Doris, how is your grandmother?”

“She’s all right,” said Doris. “Just the same. Bob kicked his football through the window the other day, and she kept us prisoners in the schoolroom two days, and we wouldn’t have been let go to the meet this morning only for Mr Fanshawe.”

“Who is Mr Fanshawe?” asked Miss Lestrange, with a sudden interest in her voice.

“Jolliest chap you ever met,” cut in Lord Gawdor; “isn’t he, Doris?”

“Rather!” replied Doris.

“And he gave Patsy half a crown,” went on Lord Gawdor—“this is Patsy driving—He’s off hunting this morning. My! can’t he ride? And hasn’t he some fine horses?”

“What is he like?” asked Miss Lestrange.

“I dunno,” replied Lord Gawdor.

“He’s awfully good-looking,” said Doris.

“He’s a rale gintleman,” said Patsy. “Beg your pardon, miss, for speakin’.”

“Not at all,” said Miss Lestrange, smiling sweetly on Patsy. On getting into the “tub” she had looked tired from her journey and bored, but she was now full of spirits and animation. “So your name is Patsy, is it?”

“Patsy Rooney, miss,” replied that individual, as he turned the “tub” in at the gates. “I’m the page-boy, and clanes the knives and the boots, but I’m looking afther Mr Fanshawe now, for his man sprained his fut and had to be left behind: and it’s only this marnin’ Mr Fanshawe says to me, ‘Patsy, you’re a jewel at cleanin’ boots and brushing clothes, and if you continy in the grace of God,’ he says, ‘it’s a valley I’ll make of you before you’re much older,’ and, bedad,” finished Patsy, hitting the pony a “skelp” with the whip, “I’d sooner sarve him for tuppence a week than any other gintleman in the country for a pound.”

CHAPTER XIV
A KISS ON THE STAIRS

Mr Boxall was standing in his bedroom preparatory to dressing for dinner. Mr Boxall, though a Member of Parliament, and very rich, went in omnibuses to save cab fares, and his tips to servants were a disgrace to the giver and receiver. He also had a nasty and dictatorial way with him which made him disliked.

Mr Boxall having looked around him for something he failed to find, rang the bell. The bell not being answered immediately, he opened the door and looked out on the corridor, where Patsy was passing along with a huge can of hot water.

“Hi, you, boy!” cried Mr Boxall.

“Yes, sir?” replied Patsy.

“What do you mean by not attending to my bell?”

“Attending to your which, sir?”

“My bell—are you deaf?”

“I didn’t know you’d brought one wid you, sir,” replied Patsy, with an air of injured innocence. “I was afther fetchin’ this water for Mr Fanshawe. Did yiz ring it in your room or in the passidge?”

“Good heavens!” cried Mr Boxall, “does the boy think I carry a bell about with me like a muffin man? My bedroom bell, you oaf!”

“Oh, your bidroom bell,” replied the servitor. “Sure, it’s ears as long as some people I could name I’d want to hear it, for it rings in the kitchen four flights of stairs and twinty-siven passidges away.”

“Hold your tongue,” replied Mr Boxall. “And now that you are here, go and fetch me my dressing-bag.”

“All your luggage is in your room, sir,” replied Patsy, “for I helped William, the under-gardner, with it.”

“Come here,” said Mr Boxall, smothering the resentment with which Patsy as the red-headed embodiment of the Irish race filled his Anglo-Saxon spirit. “Now stand in the doorway, stand fair and square and look around you, and—if you have eyes in your head—point me out my dressing-bag.”

“There it is, sir,” said Patsy, pointing to the dressing-bag, which was standing in a shady corner, with a travelling rug half covering it.

“Get out!” said Mr Boxall. He shut the door in the red-headed one’s face, and Patsy took up his can of hot water.

“I’ll be even wid yiz yet, ould glass eyes!” said Patsy, as he carried the can towards Mr Fanshawe’s room.

Mr Fanshawe had not yet returned from the chase. Patsy put the hot water can down by the wash-stand, and then looked around to see what more he could do. Patsy in a few hours had attached himself to Mr Fanshawe just as a dog attaches himself to a man. He would have gone through fire and water for Mr Fanshawe, but as that was not required of him, he expended his energy in the polishing of his boots and the brushing of his clothes.

Having looked around and seen that everything was trim, he went downstairs to help James, the butler. Half an hour afterwards, coming up the main staircase on some errand and hearing the swish of silk, he glanced up and caught a glimpse of a spacious and portly dame descending the stairs. It was Lady Molyneux in all her glory—low evening dress, tiara of diamonds, necklace of diamonds, bracelets and all.

Lady Molyneux, with rather questionable taste, invariably put on all her diamonds for dinner. She looked like a jeweller’s shop in motion, and Patsy, alarmed at having to face so much magnificence, popped himself behind the arras on the landing.

The arras was old and dusty and smelt of rats; it was a bit tattered, too, and through a hole in it Patsy watched Lady Molyneux pass by, and gasped at the magnificence of the spectacle.

The remembrance of Paddy Murphy came to him with a cold chill; to-night, to-morrow night, any night now the knock might come to the window and he would be bound to open it. He stood reviewing this frightful certainty and watching the back view of Lady Molyneux as she descended the stairs. The thought which had been comforting him for some days past, that, though he had sworn to open the window for the burglars he had not sworn not to tell, came to him, coupled with the recollection of Mr Fanshawe’s guns.

He was just on the point of leaving his hiding-place when the sound of some one else descending the stairs made him pause. It was Miss Lestrange, looking very beautiful in a black evening dress, and with a rose worn Spanish fashion in the clouds of her dark hair.

Patsy was gazing in admiration at this beautiful vision which was descending towards him when a hurried step coming up the stairs was heard. It was Dicky Fanshawe, plastered with mud from top to toe; he was coming up the stairs two steps at a time. His left coat sleeve was nearly ripped out of the coat, and his face was a mask of mud. He had come a barbed wire cropper, and had been bogged beyond Shepherd’s Cross; but he did not seem hurt, and he did not seem particularly depressed with his misfortunes, for he was whistling a tune, and he had nearly cannoned against Miss Lestrange before he saw her.

“Violet!” cried the young man, drawing suddenly back.

“Dicky—Mr Fanshawe!” cried the girl.

Then their hands met, and Patsy, behind the arras, wished that he were somewhere else.

“I knew you were coming,” he said.

“I knew you were here,” said she.

“How did you know?”

“The children told me that a Mr Fanshawe was here who was awfully jolly, and—very ugly, so I knew it must be you.”

“You did not get any of the letters I wrote to you,” he said. “My uncle wrote to me and told me frankly he had intercepted them, and if I wrote again he would put you in Chancery or some nonsense; he’s always blustering and bellowing—Violet!”

“Don’t, Dicky—don’t, Mr Fanshawe—some one may be looking, and your face is all mud.”

“So it is,” said Dicky, rubbing it and looking at his hand.

“Is there any on my cheek?” asked she.

“Let me look—closer——”

“Dicky!”

“Go it!” murmured Patsy, behind the arras. “Give her another wan—she stickin’ her cheek out for it and thin pretendin’ to be surprised! Musha! but wimmen are all the same.”

The roar of a gong and a step coming down the stairs brought matters to a swift conclusion. Miss Lestrange swept downstairs, and Mr Fanshawe rushed upstairs, nearly running into the arms of Mr Boxall on the way. When Mr Boxall had passed, and the coast was clear, Patsy left his hiding-place and betook him to Mr Fanshawe’s room.

“Come in—who’s there?” cried Dicky, at the knock.

“It’s me, sir; can I be getting you anything?” replied Patsy, opening the door.

“Yes—here you are!” cried Dicky, who seemed in wildly high spirits. “Fetch my evening clothes out of that drawer there—that was the last gong, was it?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Patsy. “The dhressing gong went half an hour ago.”

“There’s no time for a bath, then,” said Mr Fanshawe, scrubbing at himself with a towel. “How have the children been behaving?”

“All right, sir. After the meet we met the wagginette with some of the quality in it coming from the station, and the young lady wid the black hair got into the tub and drove home with us.”

“Oh, she did, did she?” said Mr Fanshawe in an interested voice, as he brushed away at his hair.

“Yes, sir; and the big Mimber of Parlimint wid the white face wanted to get in and drive her, an’ she up and give him a slap in the face.”

“She what?” asked Mr Fanshawe, pausing with a brush in either hand.

“Not with her fist but her tongue, sir,” replied the informant. “‘You can put the childer in the wagginette, if there’s not room. Let me dhrive you,’ says he. ‘It’s the childer I wants to talk to,’ says she; and with that he shut up like a tiliscope, glass eye and all, for they say, sir, he’s got a glass eye in his head.”

Mr Fanshawe chuckled.

“Mr Robert,” continued Patsy, speaking in an apparently aimless manner, “he says, ‘That gintleman seems very sweet on you,’ says he; and with that she blushed up red wid vixation——”

“You seem to have very sharp eyes,” said Mr Fanshawe. “How do you know when a lady blushes with ‘vixation,’ as you call it?”

“Be the sparks that came into her eyes,” replied the observer.

“Well, now, spark off downstairs,” said Mr Fanshawe, “and tell them I’ll be down in a minute, and not to wait dinner for me.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Patsy, and he “sparked.”

CHAPTER XV
GOING IN TO DINNER

“Come along, Doris,” said Lord Gawdor, “and we’ll look at the dishes going in to dinner.”

It was a favourite amusement when a dinner-party was on to hang over the banister rails and watch the dishes going in, and, sometimes, if, fortunately, the remains of a jelly or mérangue were by chance left for a moment on the hall table before being carted back to the kitchen, to descend, capture it, carry it upstairs and devour it in private.

They slipped down the stairs to the first landing and peeped over the banisters. Nothing was going in yet, the guests were still in the drawing-room.

“It’s quarter past dinner-time,” said Lord Gawdor; “wonder what they’re waiting for?”

As if in answer to his question, a step sounded on the stairs above and Dicky Fanshawe came running down.

“Hullo, kids!” cried Dicky, as he passed them. He was in too great a hurry to stop. He took the remaining flight in two or three steps, and just as he reached the hall the drawing-room door opened and General Grampound came out. The General, seeing Dicky, closed the door behind him and came towards his nephew, looking, as he came, not unlike a ruffled cockatoo.

“That’s General Grampound,” said Doris. “Wish we could hear what he’s saying to Mr Fanshawe.”

“Looks as if he was wigging him for being late,” said Bob.

“Yes, doesn’t he? He’s his uncle—old beast—look! he’s quite purple in the face.”

“Look!” said Bob.

The drawing-room door had opened, disclosing Lady Seagrave on the arm of Uncle Molyneux.

“There you are, you two,” said her ladyship; “I had quite determined to dine without you. General, give your arm to Lady Molyneux. What have you two been talking so earnestly about?”

“Roses,” replied Dicky, with a side glance at Violet Lestrange, who was passing him, on the arm of Mr Boxall.

“I’m glad they’ve done jawing,” said Lord Gawdor, when the last of the guests had vanished into the dining-room; “it’ll be an hour now before the sweets are brought up.”

“Bob,” said Doris, “I believe she’s in love with him.”

“Who?”

“Miss Lestrange with Mr Fanshawe.”

“Oh, that rot,” said his lordship. “Girls are always fallin’ in love with fellows—makes me sick. Hi, Patsy!”

Patsy was passing below carrying a tray with glasses on it; he did not hear the hail as Lord Gawdor dared not raise his voice. He passed on and vanished.

“Patsy heard all they were saying,” said Doris. “I saw him standing and listening at the passage door leading to the kitchen.”

“So did I. I tried to catch his eye, but he wasn’t looking this way.”

“I think the old General is a beast,” said Doris.

“He looks a hot ’un,” said Bob, who was whistling softly and making little slides down the banister rails.

“You know, at afternoon tea to-day,” said Doris, “when you upset that plate of cakes, and then joggled Miss Lestrange’s tea-cup half into her lap, I heard him saying to the Member of Parliament man, he said, ‘I don’t care whether they are the children of a prince or the children of a Kitmutgar’ (whatever that is), ‘children all the world over are just the same, and they are a damned nuisance.’”

“Hurroo! who’s swore now?” cried Lord Gawdor.

“I didn’t; I only repeated what he said, and Mr Boxall said he agreed with him——”

“I say!” cried Lord Gawdor, a happy recollection crossing his mind, “did you hear what Selina was saying all the time before gran’ma rang the bell for Biddy to take her out?”

“Yes; she was shouting ‘Grass-eye—grass-eye!’ What did she mean?”

“I’d told her before tea that Mr Boxall had a glass eye, and if she was good maybe he’d take it out and show it to her.”

“Oh, that was it, was it?” said Doris. Then the pair ceased conversation and hung, leaning over the banister rails, in silence, watching the dishes going in and coming out.

Patsy was greatly in evidence going and coming, and so busy that he never once glanced up. He was carrying, just now, a vol au vent in a silver dish; he paused in his passage across the hall with it, sniffed at it, stuck his thumb in it, sucked his thumb, wiped it on the side of his trousers, and then vanished into the dining-room with the dish.

“I hope the old General will have some of that,” murmured Doris.

CHAPTER XVI
IN THE “SCRUBBERY”

General Grampound and Mr Boxall were non-smokers, and as Mr Boxall was also a teetotaler, and the General was talking politics, Dicky Fanshawe found things rather dull in the dining-room when the ladies had withdrawn.

Things were almost as dull in the drawing-room, for Lady Seagrave was deaf, and Lady Molyneux was stupid.

I must have presented Patsy very badly if you have not discovered that he was the possessor of an “eye”—the eye of an observer. The faculty of observation given to him by nature and developed amongst the wild things of the woods was exercised to the full amidst the new surroundings in which he found himself.

He had sized up Mr Boxall. He had overheard the conversation between General Grampound and his nephew; he, whilst circulating with dishes and plates behind the chairs of the guests at table, had gauged the relationship of each to each. Though half their conversation was Greek to him, the falsity of it was not; and there was not a glance between Violet and Dicky, a side glance of Mr Boxall’s, a grimace of General Grampound’s, that escaped the awful eye of Patsy.

These preoccupations did not, however, interfere in the least with his occupations and duties, such as handing plates and dishes, devouring half a neglected custard on its way to the kitchen, and stuffing his trousers pockets with fondants and nuts.

As the people in the drawing-room were seated, Lady Molyneux at the table turning over the leaves of an album, Violet Lestrange by the fire gazing at the burning logs and Lady Seagrave nodding in her easy-chair opposite Violet, Patsy entered with a tray containing coffee.

“The childer are in the nursery, miss,” said Patsy in a low tone, as he presented the tray to Violet.

There was something in the tone of his voice that said much more than the simple words implied. In fact, if Patsy had said, “It’s tired to death you are with these ould women, and it’s I that am sorry for you,” his meaning would not have been plainer. Yet there was nothing disrespectful in his tone at all.

“Thank you, Patsy,” said Violet, taking her cup. Then, without tasting it, she laid it on a table near by. “I think I will run up and say good-night to the children,” said she, rising. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all,” replied Lady Seagrave. “Give them my love, and tell them I am pleased they have managed for one day to behave themselves.”

“I will,” said Violet, and she departed.

Scarcely had she vanished upstairs than the dining-room door opened and Dicky Fanshawe came out.

Patsy was lingering about in the hall, and Dicky called him.

“Which is the way to the ‘scrubbery,’ Patsy?” said he. “I want to smoke a cigar.”

“This way, sir,” said Patsy, leading the way down a passage, through a swing-door, down another passage, to a door that was bolted and which he opened.

“Leave the door open,” said Mr Fanshawe. “I will shut it when I come in.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Patsy. “Sure, it’s a fine night for a smoke under the stars. Mr Fanshawe, sir!”

“Yes?”

“The childer are in the nursery, sir,” said Patsy in a muted voice, as though he were imparting some State secret.

“Oh, they are, are they?” said Mr Fanshawe, rather surprised at the mysterious tone of the communication. “And what are they doing—no mischief, I hope?”

“The young lady is wid them,” said Patsy. “There’s no wan else up there, but, sure, they’re safe enough wid her.”

There was the faintest suspicion of jocularity in Patsy’s tone, so faint as to be almost indiscernible. Still it was there, and as there was nothing jocular in the remark of which the tone was, so to speak, the envelope, it was more particularly noticeable.

“Patsy!” said Mr Fanshawe, who had taken a few steps from the door, turning and trying to make out in the surrounding darkness the small figure of his informant.

But Patsy had vanished.

“Confound the boy!” said Mr Fanshawe. “What did he mean?”

Instead of a cigar he took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, smoked it half through, flung it away, and re-entered the house. As he was crossing the hall he came upon Uncle Molyneux, who had just escaped from the dining-room, and who did not look cheerful.

“Come and have a game of billiards,” said Uncle Molyneux.

“I can’t for a moment,” replied Dicky hurriedly, “for I’m just running up to the nursery to say good-night to the children.”

CHAPTER XVII
THE STORY OF THE PIG

“Now sit down, Bob, and do try to behave yourself; Selina shall sit in my lap if she will promise to be good, and I will tell you a story—Doris, leave the poker alone—Dear me, dear me,” said Miss Lestrange, suddenly assuming a grandmotherly tone, “who’d be worried by children? Where is my snuff-box and my cane?—Well, then, sit still and count ten to yourselves all round whilst I think of a story.”

She was seated in the old broken-down nursery rocking-chair with Selina in her lap; there was no lamp, and the flickering fire-light lit the interminable man driving his pig to market and the broom-like tail of the rocking-horse, whose body was lost in shadow.

“Ten!” suddenly yelled Lord Gawdor.

“I’d only got to nine,” said Doris. “Bob counts so quick. No matter, begin the story.”

“I haven’t thought of one yet,” said Miss Lestrange. “What shall it be? Selina is the youngest, and she shall choose; what would you like a story about, Selina?”

“Pigs!” replied Selina after a moment’s deliberation, during which her eyes had wandered round the walls of the room in search of inspiration.

“I’m afraid I can scarcely rise to pigs,” said Miss Lestrange. “Think again, Selina; shut your eyes and think hard. How would a story about a giant do?”

Selina thought for a moment, and then, with the air of a person who had quite made up her mind:

“I want a ’tory about piggy-wiggies.”

“Try a giant, Selina,” said Doris, in the coaxing voice of a nurse offering a delicacy to an invalid.

“Don’t want a giant,” replied the pig fancier. “I want piggy-wiggies.”

“Who’s this that wants piggy-wiggies?” came a voice from the door. “Oh, I beg pardon—thought there was no one here. May I come in?”

“No room, no room,” cried Miss Lestrange; “we are telling stories.”

“There’s plenty of room,” replied Mr Fanshawe, paraphrasing the heroine of “Alice in Wonderland,” and crossing the floor at the same time. “I say, how jolly you all look sitting round the fire!”

Selina, seeing the newcomer, looked at him for a moment critically, forgot pigs completely, and held out her arms to him.

“Selina has never done that to any one before,” said Doris; “she hates strangers, as a rule, and always cries at them.”

“There, take her,” said Miss Lestrange, handing the white bundle to Mr Fanshawe, who sat down with it on the chair vacated by Bob; “but take the responsibility also—you have to tell her a story about a pig.”

“Right,” replied Mr Fanshawe, whilst Selina settled herself to listen; and Bob and his sister, who didn’t care much for stories of Selina’s level, amused themselves on the floor with a clock-work motor-car which Uncle Molyneux had brought them from London.

The whizz and snarl of the motor-car as it made frantic gyrations on the nursery floor half obscured Mr Fanshawe’s voice.

“There was once a little pig,” began Mr Fanshawe, “and he lived in a sty—I say, things were pretty dull in the dining-room when you left. Did you ever hear Boxall on the preferential tariff question?—Boxall with his muzzle off? Uncle’s bad to beat when he’s on the first Sikh war, but Boxall—Yes, yes, Selina, where was I?—There was once a little pig and he lived in a sty and he had bran mash for dinner. He had three little brothers and three little sisters—now count them to yourself, and I’ll give you a penny if you tell me how many little brothers and sisters he had—count them five times over and I’ll give you tuppence—So I just bolted, and Patsy said you were here—Do you know Patsy, the red-headed page-boy?—So I thought I’d come up and see. Oh, Violet—It’s all right, I’m not talking loud enough for them to hear—but I’ve been half cracked for the last few months. This can’t go on, there’s no use talking. Do you know why uncle is trying to separate us? It’s just from viciousness. You don’t know him; he hates me—why? for no reason at all; we don’t get on, that’s all—ever since I was a boy it has been the same. You see, uncle is like nothing so much in the world as a vicious old maid who has been crossed in love and hates to see other people happy. Violet, darling——

“Oh, bother the pigs—Yes, Selina, there were six little pigs, and one had a gun—here, play with my watch—Violet, darling, it has come to this, that both our lives will be wrecked by that old lunatic if we are not careful—the old Seagrave woman is aiding and abetting him. I have lots of money for us both, I love you, you care for me—let’s go in for a bold stroke. Look here, he’s always threatening to put you in Chancery—let’s outwit him. Once you are married he can’t put you in Chancery, ’cos you’d be mine then, do you see?—There you are, take the whole watch and chain and play with it—Let’s give them all the slip. I’ll get a special licence, we’ll take the train to Dublin; you can stop at my aunt’s in Merrion Square—she’s a regular sportsman—and before they can stop us we’ll be married. I know it’s awfully sudden my proposing this, but what am I to do? Look at us—we can scarcely speak to each other, unless by strategy. And I know this, unless you do as I say, we will never be married, for you will never have strength to resist uncle; he’ll keep nagging to you till he breaks your spirit. And that beast of a Boxall—suppose he has got seven thousand a year, money isn’t happiness tied to a brute like that. I have three thousand a year myself, and I’ll give up racing, I’ll give up smoking, I’ll give up everything for you. Promise me you’ll think of what I say—Bless you, my darling—Violet, darling, lean your dear head forward—no—well, I won’t—Now what is it, Selina——”

“She has dropped your watch,” said Miss Lestrange.

“And smashed it, too,” replied Mr Fanshawe; “and cheap at the price—Bless her, she’s asleep.”

Selina, suddenly overcome, was in the arms of slumber, and at that moment the door leading to the night nursery opened, and Biddy Mahony entered in search of her charge.

“She ought to a’ been in bed an hour ago,” said Biddy, as she took Selina from Mr Fanshawe; “but she gets wild when there’s company in the house, and there’s no sootherin’ her to slape.”

“Grass-eyes,” muttered Selina, tossing her arms in slumber as Biddy carried her off.

“She’s thinking of Mr. Boxall’s eye,” said Lord Gawdor. “Mr Fanshawe, one of Mr Boxall’s eyes is made of glass.”

“Never mind Mr Boxall’s eyes,” cried Dicky in wild spirits; “come on, and we’ll have a game of Blind-man’s Buff.”

“I say,” said little Lord Gawdor to Doris when Dicky and Miss Lestrange had departed, “when Mr Fanshawe had blinded us both I just lifted the handkerchief a wee peep, and do you know what I saw?”

“I know,” replied Doris, “I heard it; but don’t tell.”

“Think I’m an ass?” said Lord Gawdor.

CHAPTER XVIII
AN INTERRUPTED FEAST

At ten o’clock that night Patsy entered his bedroom with a tin candlestick in his hand. He placed the candlestick on the dressing-table, and, approaching the bed, began to unload his pockets of plunder; nuts, and almonds, and raisins, a crystallised apricot and a piece of green angelica made up the pile which he placed on the coverlet of the bed, also a huge Tom Smith cracker with a picture of Miss Marie Studholme stuck on the gelatine cover.

He surveyed the lot with a grin of satisfaction, sat down on the side of the bed, and was just setting to work when a scratching noise at the window drew his attention, and, looking up, he saw at the pane the white face of Con Cogan.

Patsy’s jaw dropped, and the walnut which he was in the act of cracking dropped also, fell on the floor, and rolled into a corner.

“Oh, musha!” said Patsy, “there he is again!”

He got off the bed and, like a fascinated bird, approached the beckoning form at the window.

“What is it you want?” asked Patsy, as he raised the sash. “Sure, the house is all a-bed, and it’s ruined I’ll be if they hear you.”

“What’s all that on the bed?” asked Con; “all them things on the quilt you was eatin’?”

“Sure, they’re only some nuts and raisins,” replied Patsy, who saw his prospective feast vanishing before him. “What is it you want? for it’s ruined I’ll be if they hear us.”

“I’ll come in and help yiz,” said Con, putting one leg over the sill. “There’s no law in the land can put a man in prizin for comin’ in to have supper wid his nephew. It’s afraid I am,” said Con, putting the other leg over, “that it’s indisgestion you’ll be havin’. The idea,” went on he, sitting down on the edge of the bed and surveying the feast—“the idea of lettin’ childer stuff thimselves up wid sweets and nuts! It’s ashamed the ould lady ought to be of herself. Sit down on the bed beside me, Patsy Rooney, and there’s a walnut for you. I’ll attind to the sweets.”

He put the crystallised apricot in his mouth, and Patsy, with the walnut in his hand, sat watching his treasures vanishing.

“You’re not eatin’ your nuts,” said Mr Cogan, as he swallowed the last of the chocolates and set to on the nuts.

“What is it you’re afther?” said Patsy, whose appetite had completely disappeared. “What’s made you come to-night at all, at all?”

Mr Cogan cracked a walnut and devoured the contents.

“And what’s this?” said he, taking up the cracker, without replying to Patsy’s very pertinent question.

“Thims is crackers,” replied Patsy in a half-hearted voice. “Is it Paddy Murphy’s job you’re afther, or what?”

“And who’s the girl, may I ax?” went on Mr Cogan, examining Miss Studholme with a critical and approving eye.

“I dunno,” replied Patsy. “Sure, it’s moidhered I am! What is it you’re afther, Con Cogan?”

“Is it to eat, or what?” asked Mr Cogan, still disregarding Patsy, and touching the gelatine cover with his tongue.

“Stop, or it’s pizened you’ll be,” said Patsy; “it’s not for eatin’. You catch hould of it at both ends, same as you have it now, and pull; but don’t be doin’ it, or——”

Bang!

Next moment Mr Cogan was across the floor and out of the window.

“I told you not,” said Patsy, who had his hand on the sash. “Run, before the house is up and afther you!”

“Why didn’t yiz tell me there was gunpowdher in it?” asked Con, whose teeth were chattering. “Stick your ear out of the window, for this is what I’ve come afther. Paddy Murphy will be here at twelve o’clock to-morra night; he’ll be here at the window and give two taps—rimimber what you swore.”

“Con!” said Patsy, leaning out into the darkness; but the valiant Con had vanished.

Upstairs Mr Fanshawe had slipped on an old shooting jacket, and, quite forgetful of all Lady Seagrave’s prohibitions about tobacco, was enjoying a cigar by his bedroom fire.

He was not dissatisfied with his day. He had had a good run with the hounds, and he had been extraordinarily successful in securing a long uninterrupted talk with Violet Lestrange, to say nothing of the Blind-man’s Buff, yet he was disturbed in his mind and anxious.

He knew quite well that if he did not succeed in marrying the girl he loved by strategy, he would never marry her at all. General Grampound was not a bad man; he was worse, he was a coldly pig-headed man. He was also a match-maker. Match-making (I do not refer to Lucifers) is an Army disease; it is caught from living in warm climates; it attacks colonels and generals, and they never recover from it.

To be a match-maker you must also be a match-breaker. In other words, if you mix and meddle in other people’s love affairs you must inevitably do mischief.

The General was determined that Violet Lestrange should marry Mr Boxall, M.P., because, from the General’s point of view, Mr Boxall, M.P., was a “good match.”

Mr Boxall was fat, and rather plain, and had a glass eye; that did not matter in the least to the General. Had you remonstrated with him, he would probably have answered you, “Dash, it, sir—the girl’s not going to marry the fellow’s glass eye! He has seven thousand a year, and a tin mine; what more do you want? He doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t play cards, he doesn’t read novels or fritter his time away in rubbish; what more do you want? He’s strong on army reform, and he’s sound on the tariff question; what more do you want? I’ve made up my mind she shall marry him, and marry him she will, if he had a hundred glass eyes—what do you mean, sir, by shoving your oar in and mixing and meddling in other people’s businesses?”

Dicky knew his uncle, and that is why he felt it to be impossible to marry her in the ordinary fashion. The only chance was to make a runaway match of it, and do it quick. Yet there were great difficulties in the way. Tullagh station was fifteen miles from Glen Druid. Violet was watched. To get a moment’s conversation with her alone was a most difficult business.

If Violet and he were missed for an hour, search would inevitably be made for them; they would be pursued and captured.

“Mr Fanshawe, sir!”

Mr Fanshawe turned in his chair with a start. The door was open, and Patsy was standing in the doorway.

Patsy had the appearance of a sleep-walker burthened with a nightmare.

“Hulloo!” said Mr Fanshawe. “What’s the matter—what the deuce——”

“Mr Fanshawe, sir,” said Patsy, then he paused, rubbed his knuckles in his eyes and broke out, blubbering. “It’s I that am in the thruble and all—it’s I that am in the thruble and all,” blubbered Patsy,—“thinkin’ of yiz lyin’ murthered in your beds, and the young lady and the childer! Oh, wirra, wirra! it’s ten fut under the sod I wish I was before I ever see this day!”

“God bless the boy!” said Mr Fanshawe. “What on earth has happened? Who’s murdering who, and what’s it all about?”

“I didn’t swear not to tell on thim—bad luck to thim!” said Patsy, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand and suppressing his sobs. “It’s the burgulars I tould you of, Mr Fanshawe.”

“What burglars?” asked Mr Fanshawe.

“The ones I tould you I dhramed of,” replied Patsy. “I wasn’t dhramin’ at all——”

“Then what on earth were you doing?” asked Mr Fanshawe, in whose mind vague suspicious of Patsy’s sanity were beginning to arise.

“I was only pritindin’,” replied Patsy.

“Look here,” said Mr Fanshawe, “just pull yourself together and clear your mind—what’s all this about burglars and murderers? Out with it, you young beggar, before I take a hunting crop to you.”

Encouraged like this, Patsy told his tale.

“To-morrow night at twelve, do you say?” asked Mr Fanshawe. “Why, the matter is simple enough: we must tell the police, that’s all.”

“The p’leece!” said Patsy with fine contempt. “Sure, the p’leece are all at the other side of the country where the cattle dhrivin’ is goin’ on. Mr Fanshawe, sir!”

“Yes, Patsy?”

“I was thinkin’ if you was to load wan of thim guns of yours up to the muzzle wid bu’lets——”

“Yes, Patsy.”

“And stand with it in your fist close to the wall of me room be the window. I’d open the sash. Paddy Murphy would stick the ugly head of him into the room——”

“Yes, Patsy?”

“Thin you’d let fly wid the gun and blow it aff him.”

“Why, you murderous young devil,” said Mr Fanshawe, “do you know what you are proposing—do you know you could be hanged for doing that?”

“For doin’ which, sir?”

“Which!—blowing a man’s head off like that.”

“Sure, who’d know?” replied the other. “The p’leece would be so glad to be shut of him, they’d never ax no questions; and wouldn’t he desarve it?”

“I don’t know anything about Mr Murphy’s deserts,” said Mr Fanshawe; “he may be bad enough, but I’m not going to assassinate him in cold blood. Patsy, can you keep a secret?”

“Tight as a drum,” replied Patsy.

“Well, don’t say a word of this to any one, and to-morrow night we may have some fun with Mr Murphy. Did you ever catch a rabbit in a snare, Patsy?”

Patsy grinned.

“Well, the idea has just come to me that we may be able to arrange something of that sort for Mr Murphy. I only want a pulley and some rope—stay, I have it: you know the flagstaff on the roof?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, there must be twenty yards or so of signal-halyard line on it. You know what I mean—the rope they pull the flag up on.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, to-morrow you must get me that rope; it will do in the evening time after dinner. Is there anything I can fix a pulley to in the ceiling?”

“Sure, there’s a big oak beam that’d hould an iliphant,” said Patsy, whose rabbit-snaring instincts told him something of the plan which had occurred to Mr Fanshawe.

“That will do. Now cut off to bed, and mind you say nothing of this to any one. It isn’t every day one has the chance of trapping a burglar. The beagles meet to-morrow at ten, don’t they?”

“Yes, sir, at the park gates,” replied Patsy.

“Right!” said Mr Fanshawe. “Be sure and call me at eight.”

CHAPTER XIX
SHAN

The Castle Knock beagles were a mixed pack of tall hare-hounds and tiny rabbit-beagles. Nearly every cottager boarded a dog; Mr French (a cousin of Mr O’Farrell, the Master of the Hounds) supplied most of the money requisite, and Shan Finucane was the huntsman.

Shan had been after hares for thirty years or so. He was a cadaverous-looking person with solid leather lungs, a face the colour of mahogany (almost), an eye like a gimlet, and an old green coat with three brass buttons on it. A battered old hunting horn, and a whip with a leaden ball on the top of it completed Shan’s rig-out.

Shan was great in the field, absolute master of all he surveyed; to see him, with the cry of the dogs answering his cry of “Forrard, forrard,” to see him with the tails of his old tattered coat flying in the air as he took bank and bramble hedge, mud-spattered, hallooing, exultant and glorious, was to see a sight you were not likely to forget in a hurry.

Though the beagles were good sport, and their runs sometimes attended by the “quality,” a section of the sporting community of Castle Knock turned up its nose at them.

Billy the Buck, for instance, would, so he declared, have sooner been found dead in a ditch than “runnin’ afther them baygles.” The little short runs that a hare afforded were no use to Billy: great stretches of country were the desire of his soul; besides, he was at mortal enmity with Shan.

Mr Mahony, the sweep, was also an anti-beagleite. His donkey-cart was never seen at a meet of “thim tarriers,” as he called them. The fact of the matter being that Mr Mahony hated to be outshone. He was the sporting oracle of the village. Two years ago he had backed “Ballybrack” at the Tullagh races. No one else had spotted the horse as a winner; it had started at thirty to one, and Mr Mahony had scooped thirty pounds, and been wheeled home under a pig-net in a wheel-barrow. Though he had backed several losers since then, his word was still law on all matters concerning sport, and the airs put on by Shan when he was hunting with his “tarriers” vexed the soul of Mr Mahony.

At nine o’clock of this bright, grey winter’s morning, coming along the broad high-road from Kilgobbin through air delicious with the scent of turf smoke from the cottages and the smell of the good brown earth, you might have seen Shan Finucane in all his glory, half a dozen couples of dogs at his heels, and his old whip under his arm.

When he reached the entrance to the village of Castle Knock he blew a note on his horn.

The effect was magical. Heads popped out of doors, children ran into the street, pigs stopped grubbing in the road and cocked their eyes over their shoulders in the direction of the sound; the Castle Knock inn vomited its customers from the bar parlour into the roadway, and from a cottage door here and there shot a dog, a beagle-boarder who joined the pack that was half following, half surrounding the huntsman.

From backyards you could hear shouts of “Who’s blowin’ the horn?” and answering shouts, “It’s Shan and the dogs.” Down the street, all besprinkled with people, every one gave the huntsman good-day, jocularly or otherwise.

“Good-mornin’ to you, Shan,” “Top of the mornin’ to you, Shan,” “Yiv lost a button from your coat, Shan,” “Shan, you’re bustin’ at the elbows,”—through all of which marched the huntsman supremely indifferent, till he reached the inn front, where he drew up, nodded to the landlord, and surveyed his dogs.

It was now after nine, the meet took place at ten, at the gates of Glen Druid House; that is to say the nominal meet—this was the real one.

“Where are you goin’ to try first, Shan?” asked a burly farmer.

Shan, without replying, shoved his old cap back from his forehead and re-surveyed his dogs.

“There’s wan short,” said he, “ould Rafter, that boards at Finnegan’s. Run, Bob Murphy, and don’t stop to pick yourself up if y’ tumble down, and give me respects to the Widdy Finnegan. Ax her to loose the dog; she has him shut in the ould pig-sty, most like. She hasn’t tumbled to the chune of the horn, for she’s as deaf as a coffin, and half moidhered in her mind. What was you axing me, Mr O’Rourke?”

The farmer repeated his question.

“Tare an’ ages!” cried Shan, letting fly his whip at a harrier that had got a rabbit-beagle down on its back and was making for a hold in its throat, “them two dogs is the Siamese twins for fighting. Loose her, you baste, or I’ll cut the coat off your back! What is this you were sayin’, Mr O’Rourke?”

The farmer, who had “tumbled” to the reason of Shan’s deafness, produced a flask from his pocket.

Shan applied it to his lips, half emptied it, replaced the cork, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and was about to give the required information, when, bursting through the crowd, came Patsy.

“Shan,” cried Patsy, “I’ve run hot-fut from the Big House to tell yiz the quality are comin’ to the meet, and you’re to wait for thim if so be they’re late.”

“Listen to that now!” murmured the surrounding throng.

“Right y’ are, Patsy,” replied Shan, with a glitter in his eye, for the presence of the “quality” meant tips, and maybe a subscription to the pack. “And how many of them are coming, Patsy.”

“Faith, I dinno,” replied Patsy; “but Mr Fanshawe is comin’, sure, and he never pulls out less than a suverin when he puts his hand in his pocket. And then there’s the Mimber of Parliament, and the ould Gineral, and the young lady wid the blew eyes, and the childer—and it’s back I must be runnin’, or it’s me place I’ll be losin’.”

“Away wid yiz, then!” cried Shan; and Patsy departed, running.

That morning at eight, when Patsy had brought up Mr Fanshawe’s shaving water, the latter had handed to him a note which he had written before going to bed.

“Patsy,” said Mr Fanshawe, “you’re a boy I can trust; there’s a note there on the dressing-table—do you see it?”

“I do, sir.”