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.