, and was known, for they had frequently been seen skulking
together at daybreak, or in the dusk of evening.

It is unnecessary to say that Meehan and his brother did not mingle much
in the society of Carnmore. In fact, the villagers and they mutually
avoided each other. A mere return of the common phrases of salutation
was generally the most that passed between them; they never entered into
that familiarity which leads to mutual intercourse, and justifies one
neighbor in freely entering the cabin of another, to spend a winter's
night, or a summer's evening, in amusing conversation. Few had ever been
in the house of the Meehans since it became theirs; nor were the means
of their subsistence known. They led an idle life, had no scarcity of
food, were decently clothed, and never wanted money; circumstances which
occasioned no small degree of conjecture in Carnmore and its vicinity.

Some said they lived by theft; others that they were coiners; and there
were many who imagined, from the diabolical countenance of the older
brother, that he had sold himself to the devil, who, they affirmed, set
his mark upon him, and was his paymaster. Upon this hypothesis several
were ready to prove that he had neither breath nor shadow; they had seen
him, they said, standing under a hedge-row of elder--that unholy
tree which furnished wood for the cross, and on which Judas hanged
himself--yet, although it was noon-day in the month of July, his person
threw out no shadow. Worthy souls! because the man stood in the shade at
the time. But with these simple explanations Superstition had nothing to
do, although we are bound in justice to the reverend old lady to affirm
that she was kept exceedingly busy in Carnmore. If a man had a sick
cow, she was elf-shot; if his child became consumptive, it had been
overlooked, or received a blast from the fairies; if the whooping-cough
was rife, all the afflicted children were put three times under an ass;
or when they happened to have the "mumps," were led, before sunrise to a
south-running stream, with a halter hanging about their necks, under
an obligation of silence during the ceremony In short, there could
not possibly be a more superstitious spot than that which these men of
mystery had selected for their residence. Another circumstance which
caused the people to look upon them with additional dread, was their
neglect of mass on Sundays and holydays, though they avowed themselves
Roman Catholics. They