"What if I were to go in Barney's cart and see the bog by moonlight?" I ventured to suggest.
Winifred reflected.
"Barney would not object, I think," she decided. "But it may be best to ask him. He might feel abashed with you; and I know Moira would not speak a word, but just hold down her head and kick her heels together."
"In short, I should be a wet blanket," I went on.
"I should like to have you with us," Winifred said. "And, after all, the others might not mind much; so perhaps you had better come."
I laughed at the form of her invitation, but said that I would go.
"Very well," said Winifred; "that is settled. And here we are in the castle."
By this time we had passed through a long stone passage similar to that by which I had entered the room where we had left Granny Meehan; and from that time my interest grew and grew. Some parts of the castle were quite ruinous, so that we dared not enter, and only gazed in silence into gloomy, vault-like rooms, from which the floors were crumbling away. Here owls and bats held nightly revel; and Winifred told me, with bated breath, that there walked ladies of the olden time at midnight or knights with clanking armor. Again we came to halls into which streamed the light of heaven from ruinous roofs.
"We have games of hide-and-seek in some of these rooms," said Winifred, laughing. "Oh, you ought to see Moira and me tearing about here!"