sed. Patsy
had liked Mr. Terence Comerford too. He was handsomer, the people
thought, than Sir Shawn, being golden-haired, blue-eyed and ruddy, and
very big and broad-shouldered, with a jolly greeting for every one.
Many a time he had let Patsy hold his horse and flung him a sixpence
for it. The peasants had no eye for the beauty and distinction of Sir
Shawn O'Gara's looks, his elegant slenderness, the somewhat mournful
depths of his eyes which were of so dark a grey that they were almost
black. Too foreign looking, the people pronounced him, their idea of
foreigners being bounded by their knowledge of a greatly-daring Italian
organ-grinder who had once come over the mountains to Killesky with a
little red-coated monkey sitting a-top of the organ, to the great joy
of the children. That had been a record rainy season, and the
organ-grinder and the monkey had both sickened for the sun, and would
have died if old Lady O'Gara, who was half-Italian herself, had not
heard the tale and sent the man back to his own country.

"He'd be askin' Mr. Terence to forgive him because maybe he was vexed
wid him about poor Bridyeen," Patsy had often thought since. "An'
maybe because Miss Mary Creagh had always liked him better than Mr.
Terence, though she was too much afraid of Mrs. Comerford, to say it.
Or maybe 'twas that he couldn't save him from Spitfire. Not but what
she was kind enough, the crathur, if he hadn't took to floggin' her."

Very rarely Patsy thought on the man who had cursed him in the ditch
that night long ago. He was only an accidental terror of the night
crowded with terrors, from which Patsy had reached his grandfather's
door and tumbled in "about the flure" in a fainting condition. He had
queer hazy memories that the old man was kind, that the two little eyes
which had often blazed fury at him, were dim with tears. He did not
know if he dreamt it or not that he had heard his grandfather telling
the other old men around the turf fire that he, Patsy, was a good
little lad, but that he had to be strict with him to keep him good.

When he had got about again he had heard that Sir Shawn O'Gara had been
very ill, that the shock of his friend's death had been too much for
him. Then one day the old Lady O'Gara had come to the cottage on the
edge of the bog to ask for him. It had got out that Patsy had seen
something of the terrible happening of that night, and she had been
very gentle and friendly with him, an