"Not a one of me rightly knows, yer honer; maybe it 'll not be long afore he's here, and maybe it 'll not be afore the morning," said the child.
"And, maybe, not then," added his grandmother. "There's no knowing when he 'll be here; maybe not for days. I don't know what's come to them at all now—being out night skirring through the counthry; it can't come to no good, any ways."
"When Corney's at home, where does he sleep?" said Thady, looking round the cabin for a second bed, but seeing none.
"He mostly takes a stretch then down there afore the fire; but Corney's not over partickler where he sleeps. For the matter of that, I b'lieve he sleeps most out in the bog at day time."
Thady now sat down on one of the two rude stools with which the place was furnished, either to wait for Corney, or to make up his mind what other steps he would take. He had closed and bolted the door, and was just in the act of asking the old woman whether Joe Reynolds was at present living on his bit of land, or if not, where he was, when he heard footsteps coming up to the little path to the door, and the woman, sitting up in bed, said,
"There's both on 'em thin; get up, Terry, and open the door."
One of the men outside rattled the latch quietly, to let the inmates know who it was that desired admittance; and the naked boy again jumped out of bed, and opening the door, ran back and jumped in again.
Two men now entered, whom Thady, as they appeared in the moonlight through the open door, at once recognised as Joe Reynolds and Corney Dolan. He was seated close to the fire, and in the darkness and obscurity of the cabin, they did not at first perceive him.
A few moments since he had been longing for these two men who now stood before him, as the only persons on whom he could depend for security and concealment, and now that they were there he almost wished them back again, so difficult did he find it to tell them what he had to say, and to beg of them the assistance he required.
"Who the divil are you?" said Corney; "who's this you've got here, mother?—and what made you let him in here this time of night?"