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.