ultivated, half covered with sedge and sallow
bushes, and consequently liable to heavy mists. There was a mist over it
that night, and hence it was not easy even for Father Dan (accustomed to
midnight visits to curragh cottages) to find the house which had once
been the home of "Neale the Lord."

We rooted it out at last by help of the parish constable, who was
standing at the corner of a by-road talking to the coachman of a
gorgeous carriage waiting there, with its two splendid horses smoking in
the thick night air.

When, over the shingle of what we call "the street," we reached the low
straggling crofter-cottage under its thick trammon tree (supposed to
keep off the evil spirits), I rapped with my knuckles at the door, and
it was opened by a tall scraggy woman with a candle in her hand.

This was Nessy MacLeod, harder and uglier than ever, with her red hair
combed up, giving her the appearance of a bunch of carrots over two
stalks of rhubarb.

Almost before I had time to say that we had come to see Mr. O'Neill, and
to step into the house while saying so, a hoarse, husky, querulous man's
voice cried from within:

"Who is it, Nessy?"

It's Father Dan, and Martin . . . I mean Sir. . . ."

"That'll do," I said, and the next moment we were in the living-room--a
bare, bleak, comfortless Curraghman's kitchen.

A more incongruous sight than we saw there human eyes never beheld.

Daniel O'Neill, a shadow of the big brute creature he once was, a
shrivelled old man, with his bony hands scored and contracted like an
autumn leaf, his shrunken legs scarcely showing through his baggy
trousers, his square face whiter than the wall behind it, and a piece of
red flannel hanging over his head like a cowl, sat in the elbow-chair at
the side of the hearth-fire, while at a deal table, which was covered
with papers that looked like law deeds and share certificates (being
stamped and sealed), sat the Bishop of the island, and its leading
lawyer, Mr. Curphy.

On hearing my name and seeing me enter the house, Daniel O'Neill lost
all control of himself. He struggled to his feet by help of a stick, and
as I walked up to him he laid hold of me.

"You devil!" he cried. "You infernal villain! You. . . ."

But it is of no use to repeat what else he said in the fuming of his
rage, laying hold of me by the collar of my coat, and tugging at it as
if he would drag me to his feet.

I was half sorry for the man, badly as I thought of him,