een away at his preparatory school then. She had never told
any one her terrors. Perhaps some of the servants had guessed them.
She remembered the night of the Big Wind, when Shawn had been out, and
the house had shaken in the first onslaught of the hurricane, before he
came.

There was a butler's pantry close to the drawing-room door which had
always an open window. She had often stolen in there in the dark to
listen for the sound of the mare's trot. Fatima had been Shawn's
favourite mount in those days, and no one could mistake the sound of
her delicate feet in the distance. There, with her ear to the night,
Mary O'Gara had listened and listened, her heart thumping so fast
sometimes that she could not be sure if she heard the horse's hoofs.
Only, as she used to say joyously afterwards, there was really no
mistaking Fatima's trot when she _was_ coming.

Once, Rafferty, the old butler, who was dead now, had opened the pantry
door suddenly, and had all but let the tray of Waterford glass he was
carrying fall, for the fright she had given him.

She remembered how on that night of the Big Wind, when her terror was
at its worst. Patsy Kenny had asked to see her about something or
other; how she had gone into the office to talk to him; how he had
talked gently about Fatima, how sure-footed she was and how wise, and
how little likely to be frightened as long as she was carrying her
master. He had wandered off into simple homely talk, about the supply
of turf, how the fair had gone, the price the people were getting for
their beasts; now and again leaving off to say, when the moan of the
wind came and the house shook: "Glory be to God, it's goin' to be a
wild night, so it is!" Or "That was a smart little clap o' win'. It's
a great blessin' to be on dry land to-night."

Patsy's way with the dumb beasts was well known; and Lady O'Gara had
said afterwards, when she had her husband warm and dry by the fire, and
she too happy, being relieved of her terrors, to mind the storm which
had not yet reached anything like its height, that Patsy had soothed
her as though she were a nervous horse.

Shawn had been younger and stronger then. He had laughed at her fears
and had insisted on making a night of it, keeping a roaring fire and
lamplight all through the terrifying din, while the servants in the
kitchen said their Rosary and prayed for the night to be over.
Sometime in the wild late dawn, when the wind was subsiding, Sha