"Was that the mad schoolmaster I saw with Winifred?" I asked—lowering my voice, however, in deference to the caution which I felt angrily disposed to call superstition.
"Sure I suppose 'twas himself and no other," declared Mrs. Meehan, with a half sigh. "Miss Winifred has a real heart-love for him; and sometimes it makes me uneasy, because people say he's too knowledgeable to have come honestly by his wisdom. There's no tellin'. But be that as it may, there's no other evil told of the man. He's been like a father to the poor little one and given her all the schoolin' she's had."
"He is a schoolmaster, then?" I asked.
"To be sure, ma'am, and a mighty fine one entirely; so that for many a year them that wanted their childer to have more book-learnin' than they have themselves, as folks do nowadays, sent their gossoons to him, and the girls as well. And a kind and good master he was, I'm told: never a cross word passin' his lips. And a fine scholar, with a power of learnin' in his head."
"Does he still keep the school?" I inquired further.
"He doesn't, ma'am, more's the pity. But 'twas this way. One began to be afeard of him, sayin' that he wasn't lucky; and another began to be afeard. The word flew from mouth to mouth, till but few enough remained. Then of a sudden he up and told the people that he wasn't goin' to teach no more in the hills of Wicklow; and he closed up his school and off with him for a month or so. He came back again, do you mind? But he never would have no pupils except Miss Winifred. And when the people seen that they tried to get him to take back the school. But it was all of no use: he's that set agin it that Father Owen himself could do nothin' with him."
"But how does he support himself?"
Granny Meehan turned her head this way and that, listening, to be sure that no one was about; then she leaned toward me, seeming to know by instinct where I sat, and began impressively:
"Oh, it's a queer kind of life he's led since then! He still has his cabin up in the Croghans—you may see it any day. Sometimes he's there and sometimes he isn't; but many a tale does be told about his doin's up yonder. There was one that watched him by night, and what do you think he seen?"