“Is there any man or woman of these parts excepting yourself abroad with them now?” asks Shan.
“Not a one at this present. But at dark to-morrow we are going for to lift young Cassidy’s wife.”
Well Shan kept inquiring of Hughie when would he like to come home. At long last the lad gave out he’d be ready in three weeks from that hour.
“Let you come to the fort,” says he, “and meet the whole host of the fairies. We’ll give them the slip at the gap.” With that the voice went away off the street, singing till the sound dwined out in the distance. But my poor Shan was that put about he couldn’t decide what to do. At the dawn of the morning he set off to visit the Priest, and he informed him every word he was after hearing. Well his Reverence couldn’t believe there was anything in it only a dream of the night.
“Let your Reverence go to the Cassidy’s and keep herself from their hands,” says Shan. “For the Good People are determined to lift her away.”
“Go home now and attend to your farm,” says the Priest. “’Tis the raving of grief is on you for the brother you lost.”
Still and all his Reverence set out for Cassidy’s that evening to see was anything wrong. Didn’t he find the Good People before him and they had herself brought away. “Oh if only I had come in time,” says he. “But I might be some hindrance to them yet.”
With that he went down to the hollow, and Shan was sitting within in the house. Says the Priest: “Let you not stir from this for the calling of voices that pass. You are after informing me of an intention you have for to rescue your brother on a set and certain night. Now give me your promise to make no attempt of the sort—for it’s into the power of the fallen angels you’d go, and you’d not get him rescued at all.”
“I be to make an offer anyway,” says Shan.
“Very well,” says the Priest. “I’ll send four strong men of this parish to rope you down in your bed on that ill night.”