"'Deed, I won't," said Mick; "ye've been quare an' kind to me. I'd like to give ye somethin' before ye go, so that ye won't forget me, but I've nothin' but my ould watch. I wisht ye'd take it, Pat."

Pat hid his face in his hands, then he gave a sound like a groan, and got up, and took Mick by the shoulders. "See here," he said, "ye'll niver forget me, an' I'll niver forget you. G.o.d forgive me, I wouldn't hurt a hair a' yer head, an' yet I'm goin' to do ye the cruel harm.

An' it's tearin' the heart out of me to do it. Mind that. But I give my father my word I'd do it, an' it's the right thing for-by. It's only because it's yerself that it's killin' me." And he turned back into the cottage, and shut the door. The whole way home Mick puzzled over what he could have meant.

The next day was Honeybird's birthday, and they were all to go to take tea with Aunt Mary and Uncle Niel at the farm. This was one of their greatest treats; but at the last minute Mick said he did not want to go. All the morning, every time he remembered, tears kept coming into his eyes--Pat was burying his old granny to-day, and then he was going to leave Ireland for ever. It seemed a mean thing to go to a tea party when your best friend was going away, and you would never see him again. When he thought of how white and ill Pat had looked yesterday Mick felt a lump in his throat. But Lull said he must go to the farm whether he liked it or not, or Aunt Mary would be hurt.

The farm was nearly a mile from Rowallan. Half the way was by the open road, but the other half was through the loney--a muddy lane with a bad reputation. All sorts of tales were told about it. A murderer had been hanged, people said, on the willow-tree that grew there, and late at night his bones could be heard still rattling in the breeze; and _Things_ that dare not go by the front road, for fear of pa.s.sing the figure of the Blessed Virgin on the convent chapel, came to and from the mountains by this way. The convent wall, on one side, threw a shadow on the path, making it dark even in daylight; on the other side was a deep ditch. The children ran as fast as they could till they came to the end of the wall, when the path turned across the open fields to the farm. They knew no place that looked so clean and bright as that whitewashed house on the brow of the hill. After the gloom of the loney the low, white garden wall, the fuchsia bushes, the beds of yellow marigolds seemed to smile at them in a glow of sunlight. Aunt Mary was waiting at the half-door, quieting the dogs, that had been roused from their sleep in front of the kitchen fire. Aunt Mary was a little woman with a soft voice; she wore her hair parted down the middle, and brushed back till it shone like silk. When she had kissed them all she took them upstairs to her bedroom to take off their things. Jane always said she would be feared to death to sleep in Aunt Mary's room. The ceiling sloped down on one side, and in under it there was a window looking across the fields to the river and the big dark mountains beyond. To-day the window was open, and they could hear the noise the river made as it fell at the weir. Jane listened a minute, then turned away. "I hate it," she said; "it's like a mad, wild woman cryin'."

"Don't, Jane," Mick said sharply. That mournful sound had made him unhappy again about Pat.

"Come on out of that," said Patsy, "an' let's get some pears."

Aunt Mary always allowed them to play in the room where the apples and pears were stored. Besides apples and pears there were two wooden boxes full of clothes to dress up in--stiff, old-fashioned silks, Indian muslins, embroidered jackets, and a pair of white kid boots.

Aunt Mary had worn these things when she was young and lived at Rowallan, before she turned to be a Roman Catholic and was driven out by her father. When they were tired of play they came downstairs to the parlour. This, they thought, was the most beautiful room in the world. There was a carpet with a wreath of roses on a grey ground, a cupboard with diamond panes, where Aunt Mary kept her china, and the deep window seat was filled with geraniums. Aunt Mary had a birthday present for Honeybird; she kissed her when she gave it; and said: "G.o.d and His Blessed Mother keep you, child." Then she cried a little, till they all felt inclined to cry with her. But she jumped up, and said it was time she baked the soda bread for tea. When the bread was baked and the table laid Aunt Mary went to the half-door to look out for Uncle Niel.

"I always know when he's comin' by your face, Aunt Mary," Jane said.

Aunt Mary laughed. "Indeed, I'm not surprised," she said; "for I can't remember a day when I didn't watch for his coming."

He came soon, and they had tea, and then he told them fairy tales by the kitchen fire. In the middle of a story Mick suddenly noticed Aunt Mary's face as she looked up from her knitting to watch her brother.

Jane was right; her face changed when she looked at him, her eyes seemed to shine. When he and Jane were old, and lived together as they had planned to do, they would love each other like that. Uncle Niel was like their father, Lull had once told them. She said there was not a finer gentleman in Ireland, and held him up to Mick and Patsy as a pattern of what they ought to be when they were men. Mick agreed with her. Uncle Niel was the kindest person he knew; after being with him Mick always felt he would like to be more polite to the others. When he was old he would be as polite to Jane as Uncle Niel was to Aunt Mary. On the way home it was very dark, and they all walked close to Uncle Niel going through the loney. He laughed at them, but Jane said she was afraid of the murderer whose bones rattled in the breeze.

"It's the first time I've heard of him or his bones," Uncle Niel said, "and I've been through the loney at all hours of the day and night."

"Did ye niver hear tell of Skyan the Bugler?" said Honeybird, "for I'm quare an' scared of him myself."

Uncle Niel picked her up in his arms. "What would Skyan the Bugler want with you?" he said.

"'Deed, he might be after marryin' me," she said, "an' ye know I wouldn't like that."

"I'd rather be married that kilt," said Jane.

"I think one is as bad as the other," said Uncle Niel, and he laughed again. "But I tell you what," he added; "if I ever meet anything in the loney worse than myself I'll come over in the morning and tell you."

Then Patsy, who had been walking along quietly, suddenly spoke. "Uncle Niel," he said, "who was Patrick M'Garvey?"

Mick caught his breath. Where had Patsy heard that name? Uncle Niel seemed to be startled too. He stopped short on the path. "Who was telling you about him, Patsy, lad?" he said.

"It was just a man at the fair wanst. He said if Patrick M'Garvey had waited in the loney instead of at the big gates my father would be alive to this day. I ast him what his manin' was; but another man tould him to hould his tongue, an' tould me not to heed him, for he had drink on him."

"Well, don't think about it any more, Patsy," Uncle Niel said; he was not laughing now. "You and I have a lot to forgive when we think of Patrick M'Garvey, but we do well to forgive, as G.o.d forgives us."

Mick could not go to sleep that night thinking of what Uncle Niel and Patsy had said. It was a wet night, and the rain beat against the windows. After a bit Jane came into his room from the nursery; she could not sleep either, and she thought she had heard the banshee crying. But there was no sound except the pelting of heavy rain when they listened. Mick made her crawl into his bed, and then they must have fallen asleep. They were waked by the sound of voices downstairs.

The rain was over, but the wind was up, and the voices seemed to die away and rise again every time there was a lull in the storm. They both got up, and dressed hurriedly, without waking the others.

Something must have happened, they thought, and on such a dismal morning it could only be something bad. All the village was gathered in the kitchen when they got downstairs. Some of the women were crying, and there was a scared look on the men's faces. Mick and Jane were sure their mother must be dead. But no one took any notice of them, and they could not see Lull anywhere.

"The dog was howlin' at half-past eleven," Mick heard a man say, "an'

the dour was locked and boulted when the polis tuk the body home."

Then the back door opened, and Father Ryan, the parish priest, came in.

"Go home, every one of you," he said; "talkin' won't give the man his life back."

The kitchen was soon cleared. Mick saw Lull sitting by the table, her head on her hands. Father Ryan put his hand on her shoulder.

"I've lost my best friend, Lull," he said. Lull looked up; Mick hardly knew her face, it was so small and old.

"G.o.d help us, Father," she said, and then began to cry wildly. "Miss Mary, poor Miss Mary; it'll be the death of her."

"You are right, Lull," Father Ryan said; "she'll never get over it.

I've just come from her. It will just be the mistress over again---- What are the children doing here?" he added quickly.

"G.o.d forgive me, I niver seen them to this minute," said Lull.

Father Ryan called them over to him. "Do you know what's come to you?"

he said.

"Somebody's dead," Mick answered.

"It's your Uncle Niel," Father Ryan said; "he was killed in the loney last night."

Father Ryan did not stay long. When he had gone Andy came in. Mick was crouching by the fire.

"Do you call to mind what day it was, Lull?" Andy said in a whisper Mick heard.

"I do, well," said Lull; "six years to the very day. G.o.d's curse on him," she added in a strange, harsh voice; "couldn't he be content with murderin' the wan, an' not hape sorra on us like this?"

"He's safe in America," said Andy, "that's the divilment of him; but them that's got childer has got the long arm. I'll hould ye he's niver let the boy forget. The ould mother was buried yesterday, an' the boy must 'a' been waitin' for that till he done it."

Mick heard no more; he slipped out down the pa.s.sage to the schoolroom.

He had forgotten all about Pat, but now he remembered, with a terror that overwhelmed him. For a moment he wondered if he were really himself. It could not be true that Uncle Niel was dead, and he, Michael Darragh, knew--knew what? He could not bear the thought. But it was all spread out plain before his eyes. Pat M'Garvey, his friend, whom he loved so much, had murdered Uncle Niel. He shut his eyes, and drew in his breath. "I'm goin' to do ye the cruel harm"--he could see Pat's face as he said it, so thin and miserable. Why, why had he done it? Uncle Niel was so good, and Pat was so good too, but now one was dead and the other was a murderer. Quick before his eyes horrid pictures rose up--Uncle Niel lying dead, and Pat, with blood on his hands, caught by the police; Pat going to gaol on a car, handcuffed, between two policemen, his white face---- "He didn't mane it," Mick burst out pa.s.sionately. "Oh, G.o.d, I just can't bear it." Then another thought came. He himself would be brought up to give evidence. Pat had told him he was going to do it, and now on his word Pat would be hanged. What had happened that the whole world had turned against him like this?

The next minute he was off, across the wet lawn, over the road, running for his life, not on the road, in case he was seen, but on the other side of the stone wall. It was not daylight yet, but dawn was struggling through the clouds. When he came to the village he skirted it by climbing over the rocks, then on as fast as he could go, on the coast road now it was safe--he would meet no one there--then up along the little path that wound through dead whins and boulders, up to the cottage, where the rain was dripping from the thatch. Mick never stopped till he was at the door. There was no answer to his knock.

"Pat," he whispered, "let me in." Still there was no answer. He looked in at the window: the fire was out, and the place looked deserted. "He's away," he muttered. But just then the door opened.

"Is that you?" said Pat's voice. "Come in." Mick went in, and shut the door behind him.

"Pat," he said, "ye must be off at wanst--quick, quick--or they'll catch ye."

"Who tould ye?" said Pat.

"n.o.buddy tould me. They said he was in America an' the ould mother was buried yesterday. But ye must be goin' this minute."

"Hould on a minute," said Pat; "do ye know what ye're sayin', do ye know what I've done at all?"

"I do," said Mick; "ye mur---- Ye tould me yerself ye were goin' to do me the cruel harm."

"Is that all ye know?" said Pat--"then ye know nothin'. Do ye see that gun there?" Mick saw it was still hanging over the chimneypiece.

"Well, it was that gun shot your father. Do ye see what I mane?"