When I mentioned the strange apparition which I had seen with Winifred on one of those mountain passes overlooking the Glen of the Dargle, I saw that Granny Meehan was troubled and that she strove to avoid the subject.

"Winifred seems very intelligent," I remarked.

"That she does," the old woman assented cordially. "Times there be when I'm afeard she knows too much."

"Too much?" I inquired.

Granny Meehan nodded as she added:

"Some says that it serves me right for lettin' her go to school so long to the mad schoolmaster."

Her voice sank almost to a whisper as she said the last words.

"The mad schoolmaster!" I repeated, feeling that here was no doubt the clue for which I had been so long seeking.

"Whist, ma'am dear! Don't speak that name so loud,—don't, for the love of God!" she interposed eagerly.

"Why, Mrs. Meehan," I said warmly, "you are too sensible and too religious a woman to believe all the nonsense that is talked hereabouts."

The old woman shook her head and hesitated a moment.

"I'm not sayin' that I believe this, that or the other thing," she declared, almost doggedly; "but at the end of life, ma'am dear, we get to know that there are people and things it's best not to meddle with."

"Was that the mad schoolmaster I saw with Winifred?" I asked—lowering my voice, however, in deference to the caution which I felt angrily disposed to call superstition.

"Sure I suppose 'twas himself and no other," declared Mrs. Meehan, with a half sigh. "Miss Winifred has a real heart-love for him; and sometimes it makes me uneasy, because people say he's too knowledgeable to have come honestly by his wisdom. There's no tellin'. But be that as it may, there's no other evil told of the man. He's been like a father to the poor little one and given her all the schoolin' she's had."

"He is a schoolmaster, then?" I asked.

"To be sure, ma'am, and a mighty fine one entirely; so that for many a year them that wanted their childer to have more book-learnin' than they have themselves, as folks do nowadays, sent their gossoons to him, and the girls as well. And a kind and good master he was, I'm told: never a cross word passin' his lips. And a fine scholar, with a power of learnin' in his head."

"Does he still keep the school?" I inquired further.

"He doesn't, ma'am, more's the pity. But 'twas this way. One began to be afeard of him, sayin' that he wasn't lucky; and another began to be afeard. The word flew from mouth to mouth, till but few enough remained. Then of a sudden he up and told the people that he wasn't goin' to teach no more in the hills of Wicklow; and he closed up his school and off with him for a month or so. He came back again, do you mind? But he never would have no pupils except Miss Winifred. And when the people seen that they tried to get him to take back the school. But it was all of no use: he's that set agin it that Father Owen himself could do nothin' with him."

"But how does he support himself?"

Granny Meehan turned her head this way and that, listening, to be sure that no one was about; then she leaned toward me, seeming to know by instinct where I sat, and began impressively:

"Oh, it's a queer kind of life he's led since then! He still has his cabin up in the Croghans—you may see it any day. Sometimes he's there and sometimes he isn't; but many a tale does be told about his doin's up yonder. There was one that watched him by night, and what do you think he seen?"

I could not imagine, and said so.

"He saw him puttin' stones into an iron pot, like this very one here that hangs on the hob for the potatoes."

I glanced at the utensil mentioned, while she went on with her tale.

"Well, with that the gossoon that was spyin' on him took to his heels and never stopped till he was safe at home; and, of course, the whole countryside knew of it by the mornin'. And, then, the schoolmaster goes wanderin' round in the night when honest folks are in their beds; and kneelin' down, they tell me, by the water side, as if he was prayin' to the moon and stars or to the fishes. Now I ask you if that's fit conduct for a Christian man?"

"He may have his own reasons for all that," I suggested. "Men of learning and science do many strange things."

"I'm afeard it's for no good he's actin' so," said Granny, in a cautious whisper. "Some will have it that he's worshippin' the devil; for how else could he get the gold and silver they say he has? He disappears now and again,—vanishes, as the story is, down into the ground or into some cave of the hills, and comes back with a power of money to bury somewhere; for he never spends it honestly like other folks."

I pondered over the woman's narrative, vainly seeking for an explanation, and finally setting it down to the exaggeration of the simple country people. Parts of it tallied with my own observations; but, of course, I was prepared to accept any other solution of the mystery than that which was popularly given.

"The main thing," I said, "for you to consider is whether or no he is a suitable companion for Winifred. Whatever his pursuits may be, I believe he is of too unsettled and visionary a mind to have a good influence upon the child."

"Some do say, of course, that he's mad," reflected Mrs. Meehan; "and sure he goes by the name of 'the mad schoolmaster.'"

"Such may be the true state of the case," I said musingly; "and it would be all the more reason for preventing his constant association with Winifred."

"Mad he may be," observed Granny Meehan; "though you daren't say that much to Miss Winifred. She ever and always stands up for him. When the scholars were leavin' the school above, she spoke up for the schoolmaster, and didn't spare those that deserted him. So from that day to this he comes here every day of the week to teach her."

"He is still teaching her, then?" I inquired.

"To be sure, he is, ma'am! He tells her that she's never too old for the learnin'—not if she was the age of that old oak there before the door."

Granny Meehan fell into a deep and apparently painful reverie, out of which she roused herself to say, apprehensively lowering her voice to the utmost:

"And, ma'am, what makes me the most anxious of all is the trinkets he do be givin' her. I'd never have known a word about it, but my hearin'—praise be to God for His goodness!—is mighty sharp, even though I haven't the sight of my eyes; and I heard some words he let fall, and next the sound of metal striking against metal, like the tinkle of a bell."

"And then?" I asked.

"Why, then I taxed Miss Winifred with what was goin' on, and she's as truthful as the day and wouldn't deny nothin'. So she up and told me of the beautiful trinkets of real gold he gave her. And I was vexed enough at it, and bid her throw them in the fire; fearin' mebbe they were fairy gold that would be meltin' away, leavin' ill luck behind."

"What did Winifred say to that?"

"She just fired up and bid me hold my peace, for a wicked old woman—she did indeed, ma'am."

And here Granny Meehan softly wiped away a tear.

"But I know she didn't mean it, the darlin'! And she was that soft and lovin' after that I could have forgiven her far more."

I remembered, while Granny spoke, the dainty, exquisitely wrought bracelet which I had seen displayed upon an oak leaf. But I preferred to keep that knowledge to myself and to hear all that the old woman had to tell. She presently added:

"Well, ma'am, when he comes the next day Winifred up and tells him what she did; and he flies into such a passion that I declare to you I was frightened nearly out of my wits. Such a-ragin' and a-stampin' as went on, for all the world like a storm roarin' through the castle on the wild nights. But Miss Winifred has that power over him that you'd think it was a fairy was in it, layin' spells over him. And she scolded him for his bad temper, just as would myself; and stamped her foot at him. And the next thing I heard him askin' her pardon, quiet as a lamb."

"She's a strange child," I exclaimed.

"And why wouldn't she with the upbringin' she's had?" cried Granny Meehan. "But don't you think now, ma'am dear, that it's enough to make me heart ache with trouble to have the schoolmaster bringin' his trinkets here? How would he come honestly by such things? Not that I believe he steals them, ma'am—it isn't that."

She paused in her perplexity; adding quickly, in the awestruck tone in which the simple people of the remote country districts speak of things which they suppose to be beyond mortal ken:

"Sure, then, ma'am, the only way he could come by them is through the old fellow himself, barrin' he gets them from the 'good people.'"

"But this Niall is a good man, is he not?"

"I never heard ill of him but that I'm tellin' you of," replied Granny Meehan. "Still, we're warned that the devil himself can take on the likeness of an angel of light; and if that's so, what's to hinder old Niall from bein' sold body and soul to the devil?"

"Well, I think we'd better give him the benefit of the doubt," I said. "If he appears to be a good man, let us believe that he is."

"Yes, mebbe you're right," observed Granny Meehan. "And the Lord forgive me for speakin' ill of my neighbors! But it's all out of my anxiety for Miss Winifred. The baubles may come not from the powers of darkness at all, but from the 'good people'; and that would be harmless enough, anyhow."

"In America we have no fairies—or good people, as you call them," I said jestingly.

"They tell me they're scarce enough in Ireland these days," Mrs. Meehan replied gravely. "It's only here among the hills we have them at all, at all."

"I am afraid I should have to see to believe," I said, laughing. "And now, Mrs. Meehan, in all our talk you have not told me who the schoolmaster is."

A deadly paleness overspread the old woman's face, and she sank back into the chair.

"The Lord between us and harm!" she muttered, "don't ask me that,—don't now, asthore!"

"But you know."

"Is it I know?" she cried. "Is it I would be pryin' into such things?"

I was more puzzled than ever. There was actual terror in Granny's tone.

"How absurd!" I said, partly vexed. "What mystery can there be which makes you afraid even to hint at it?"

She leaned toward me, her blind eyes rolling in their sockets, her thin lips quivering.

"A hint I'll give you," she said, "to keep you, mebbe, from talkin' foolishly and comin' to harm. He's of the old stock, I believe in my heart, come back to earth, or enchanted here, just to keep an eye on what's goin' on."

I laughed aloud. But she raised her hand in solemn warning.

"Don't for your life—don't make game of things of that sort!"

"Well, putting all that aside," I said, with some impatience, "what is the general opinion of the country people about this man?"

I asked this decisive question, though I had a pretty fair notion of what it might be from the fragmentary hints of my landlord.

"Well, it's good and it's bad," she replied, nodding her head impressively. "Truth to tell, there's so many stories goin' about the schoolmaster that it's hard to know the right from the wrong. There's them, as I was sayin', that declares he's mad, and there's more that'll tell you he's worse. And mind you, ma'am dear, none of them knows about the trinkets I was speakin' of, barrin' Miss Winifred and myself. For she put it on me not to tell; and of course I didn't till the blessed moment when I opened my heart to you, knowin' well that you'd never let a word of what I told you pass your lips."

"I shall keep the secret, of course," I promised; adding: "As to the man's character, the truth probably lies somewhere between the two opinions; but I still think him an unsuitable companion for Winifred, because he is likely to fill her head with all kinds of nonsense."

"It's God's truth you're tellin'," said the old woman. "But Miss Winifred's that fond of him there's no use in talkin' agin him."

There was a touch of bitterness in Granny Meehan's tone. It was evident that this attached nurse resented, in so far as it was in her gentle nature to resent, her young charge's partiality for the mysterious old man.

"And Miss Winifred," she continued, "sweet and all as she is, can be as wilful as the wind. She has known the old man all her life, and he tells her all the queer stories of the mountains and glens and rivers; and he acts toward her as if she were a grand, fine lady—and so she is, for the matter of that; for the child comes of a splendid old stock on both sides."

I sat listening to the old woman, and thought how the strange things she had told and the strange character we were discussing fitted in with the place in which it was being told: the massive stone walls, and the lozenged windows with their metal crossbars; the air of times long past which hung over everything; the blind woman, who might have been sitting there forever in the solitude of her blindness.

"Mebbe, ma'am," said Granny Meehan, breaking a silence which had fallen between us, "if you were to say a word to her—I can tell by the sound of her voice when she names you that she's taken a very great likin' to you—mebbe she'd listen."

"Well, if this Niall has so strong an influence over her as you say, believe me the word of a stranger would do no good. It might possibly do harm in prejudicing her strongly against me. It is better to win her confidence first, if I can. Meanwhile I shall keep my eye upon the schoolmaster and find out all I can concerning him. Of course I shall not be very long in the neighborhood, for I intend returning to America during the summer."

"America is a fine country, they tell me," said Granny Meehan, with a sigh. "And if I had my sight, mebbe it's there I'd be goin' some day, when—" she stopped abruptly, as if afraid to say too much; and then placidly continued: "Glory be to God for all His mercies! it wasn't to be. In His wisdom He seen that blindness was the best thing for me."

A smile, bright and soft as a summer sunset, lighted up her old face as she spoke; but even as I looked at her, with wonder and admiration at her faith, which was sublime in its simplicity, a black shadow fell suddenly upon the window-pane. I did not know what it was at first, and fancied that some great bird, which had built an eyrie in the ruined donjon, had swooped down to earth in the light of day. I soon perceived my mistake. It was the figure of the schoolmaster which had thus shut out the sunlight, and I imagined there was something menacing in its attitude.