eat, old house standing alone out in the wilderness; but,
if he remembered rightly it was a place given over to the fairies; or,
if that had not been so, he was certain that there had been something
"quare" about it; and, anyway, he had heard nothing of it for a very
long while--not since he was quite a gossoon. No, he could not remember
anything particular about it; indeed, he did not know he remembered
anything "at all, at all" until we questioned him.

"Look here," said Tonnison, finding that this was about all that he
could tell us, "just take a walk 'round the village, while we dress, and
find out something, if you can."

With a nondescript salute, the man departed on his errand; while we made
haste to get into our clothes; after which, we began to prepare
breakfast.

We were just sitting down to it, when he returned.

"It's all in bed the lazy divvils is, sor," he said, with a repetition
of the salute, and an appreciative eye to the good things spread out on
our provision chest, which we utilized as a table.

"Oh, well, sit down," replied my friend, "and have something to eat with
us." Which the man did without delay.

After breakfast, Tonnison sent him off again on the same errand, while
we sat and smoked. He was away some three-quarters of an hour, and, when
he returned, it was evident that he had found out something. It appeared
that he had got into conversation with an ancient man of the village,
who, probably, knew more--though it was little enough--of the strange
house, than any other person living.

The substance of this knowledge was, that, in the "ancient man's"
youth--and goodness knows how long back that was--there had stood a
great house in the center of the gardens, where now was left only that
fragment of ruin. This house had been empty for a great while; years
before his--the ancient man's--birth. It was a place shunned by the
people of the village, as it had been shunned by their fathers before
them. There were many things said about it, and all were of evil. No one
ever went near it, either by day or night. In the village it was a
synonym of all that is unholy and dreadful.

And then, one day, a man, a stranger, had ridden through the village,
and turned off down the river, in the direction of the House, as it was
always termed by the villagers. Some hours afterward, he had ridden
back, taking the track by which he had come, toward Ardrahan. Then, for
three months or so, nothing was heard