h, poor Masther Robert!" I have heard her say to a friend in the
kitchen, who was fortunately hard of hearing, "ye wouldn't feel him in
the house no more than a feather! An' indeed, as for the two o' thim,
sich gallopers never ye seen! It's hardly they'd come in the house to
throw the wet boots off thim! Thim'd gallop the woods all night like the
deer!"

At half-past twelve, all, as I have said, being in train, I went to the
window to observe the weather, and saw a covered car with a black horse
plodding along the road that separated Wavecrest Cottage from the
seashore. At our modest entrance gates it drew up, and the coachman
climbed from his perch with a dignity befitting his flowing grey beard
and the silver band on his hat.

A covered car is a vehicle peculiar to the south of Ireland; it
resembles a two-wheeled waggonette with a windowless black box on top of
it. Its mouth is at the back, and it has the sinister quality of totally
concealing its occupants until the irrevocable moment when it is turned
and backed against your front door steps. For this moment my brother
Robert and I did not wait. A short passage and a flight of steps
separated us from the kitchen; beyond the steps, and facing the kitchen
door, a door opened into the garden. Robert slipped up heavily in the
passage as we fled, but gained the garden door undamaged. The hall door
bell pealed at my ear; I caught a glimpse of Julia, pounding chops with
the rolling pin.

"Say we're out," I hissed to her--"gone out for the day! We are going
into the garden!"

"Sure ye needn't give yerself that much trouble," replied Julia affably,
as she snatched a grimy cap off a nail.

Nevertheless, in spite of the elasticity of Julia's conscience, the
garden seemed safer.

In the garden, a plot of dense and various vegetation, decorated with
Julia's lingerie, we awaited the sound of the departing wheels. But
nothing departed. The breathless minutes passed, and then, through the
open drawing-room window, we were aware of strange voices. The
drawing-room window overlooked the garden thoroughly and commandingly.
There was not a moment to lose. We plunged into the raspberry canes, and
crouched beneath their embowered arches, and the fulness of the
situation began to sink into our souls.

Through the window we caught a glimpse of a white beard and a portly
black suit, of a black bonnet and a dolman that glittered with jet, of
yet another black bonnet.

With Aunt Do