"Did oul Misther Chaine die that night?" Anna asked.
"Ax McShane!" was all the answer he gave and we were sent off to bed.
Hughie was escorted to the pigsty with his blanket and candle. What Jamie saw on the way to the pigsty made the perspiration stand in big beads on his furrowed brow. Silhouetted against the sky were several figures. Some were within a dozen yards, others were farther away. Two sat on a low wall that divided the Adair and Mulholland gardens. They were silent and motionless, but there was no mistake about it. He directed Anna's attention to them and she made light of it. When they returned to the house Jamie expressed fear for the life of the beggar-man. Anna whispered something into his ear, for she knew that we were wide-awake. They went into their room conversing in an undertone.
The thing was so uncanny to me that it was three o'clock next morning before I went to sleep. As early as six there was an unusual shuffling and clattering of feet over the cobblestones in Pogue's entry. We knew everybody in the entry by the sound of their footfall. The clatter was by the feet of strangers.
I "dunched" my brother, who lay beside me, with my elbow.
"Go an' see if oul Hughie's livin' or dead," I said.
"Ye cudn't kill 'im," he said.
"How d'ye know?"
"I heerd a quare story about 'im last night!"
"Where?"