tea. When the bread was baked
and the table laid Aunt Mary went to the half-door to look out for
Uncle Niel.

"I always know when he's comin' by your face, Aunt Mary," Jane said.

Aunt Mary laughed. "Indeed, I'm not surprised," she said; "for I can't
remember a day when I didn't watch for his coming."

He came soon, and they had tea, and then he told them fairy tales by
the kitchen fire. In the middle of a story Mick suddenly noticed Aunt
Mary's face as she looked up from her knitting to watch her brother.
Jane was right; her face changed when she looked at him, her eyes
seemed to shine. When he and Jane were old, and lived together as they
had planned to do, they would love each other like that. Uncle Niel
was like their father, Lull had once told them. She said there was not
a finer gentleman in Ireland, and held him up to Mick and Patsy as a
pattern of what they ought to be when they were men. Mick agreed with
her. Uncle Niel was the kindest person he knew; after being with him
Mick always felt he would like to be more polite to the others. When
he was old he would be as polite to Jane as Uncle Niel was to Aunt
Mary. On the way home it was very dark, and they all walked close to
Uncle Niel going through the loney. He laughed at them, but Jane said
she was afraid of the murderer whose bones rattled in the breeze.

"It's the first time I've heard of him or his bones," Uncle Niel said,
"and I've been through the loney at all hours of the day and night."

"Did ye niver hear tell of Skyan the Bugler?" said Honeybird, "for I'm
quare an' scared of him myself."

Uncle Niel picked her up in his arms. "What would Skyan the Bugler
want with you?" he said.

"'Deed, he might be after marryin' me," she said, "an' ye know I
wouldn't like that."

"I'd rather be married that kilt," said Jane.

"I think one is as bad as the other," said Uncle Niel, and he laughed
again. "But I tell you what," he added; "if I ever meet anything in
the loney worse than myself I'll come over in the morning and tell you."

Then Patsy, who had been walking along quietly, suddenly spoke. "Uncle
Niel," he said, "who was Patrick M'Garvey?"

Mick caught his breath. Where had Patsy heard that name? Uncle Niel
seemed to be startled too. He stopped short on the path. "Who was
telling you about him, Patsy, lad?" he said.

"It was just a man at the fair wanst. He said if Patrick M'Garvey had
waited in the loney instead of at the big