“That is because you are so modest,” was the reply. “I can assure you, Mr Dunloe, your fame has preceded you, and everyone present here to-night will be eagerly looking forward to the moment of your arrival. Let me introduce you to my friends. Sir Frederick Clanstradie, Sir Austin Maltravers, Lord Henry Baxter, Mr Leslie de Vaux.”
Each of the guests bowed in turn as their names were pronounced, and then, at a signal from the spokesman, who informed Ronan he was Sir Philip McBlane, cousin to their host, they proceeded in a body to the queerly constructed mansion.
Inside Ronan could see no sign whatever of any festivity, but on being told that Sir Hector was awaiting him in the ball-room, he allowed himself to be conducted along a bare, gloomy passage and down a narrow flight of steep stone steps into a large dungeon-like chamber, piled up in places with strange-looking lumber, and in one corner of which he perceived a tall figure, draped from head to foot in the hideous black garments of a Spanish inquisitor, standing in the immediate vicinity of a heap of loose bricks and freshly made mortar, and bending over a cauldron full of what looked like simmering tar. The whole aspect of the room was indeed so grim and forbidding, that Ronan drew back in dismay and turned to Sir Philip and his comrades for an explanation.
Before, however, anyone could speak, the figure in the inquisitorial robes advanced, and, bidding Ronan welcome, declared that he considered it both an honour and a privilege to entertain so illustrious a guest.
Not knowing how to reply to a greeting that seemed so absurdly exaggerated, Ronan merely mumbled out something to the effect that he was delighted to come, and then lapsed into an awkward and embarrassed silence, during which he could feel the eyes of everyone fixed on him with an expression he could not for the life of him make out.
Finally, the inquisitor, whom Ronan now divined was Sir Hector McBlane, after expressing a hope that the ladies would soon make their appearance, invited the gentlemen to partake of some refreshments.
Bottles scattered in untidy profusion upon a plain deal table were then uncorked, and the sinisterly clad host proposed they should all drink a toast of welcome to their distinguished guest, Mr Robert Dunloe.
Up to the present Ronan had only been conscious of what seemed to him courtesy and cordiality in the voices of his fellow-guests, but now, as one and all clinked glasses and shouted in unison, “For he’s a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us,” he fancied he could detect something rather different; what it was he could not say, but it gave him the same feeling of doubt and uncertainty as had the expression in their faces immediately after his introduction to Sir Hector.
Again there was an embarrassed silence, which was eventually broken by Ronan, who, perceiving that something was expected from him, at length stood up and responded to the toast.
His speech was of very short duration, but it was hardly over, before a loud rapping of high-heeled shoes sounded on the stone steps, and a number of women, dressed in every conceivable fashion, from the quaintly picturesque costume of the Middle Ages to the still fondly remembered and popular Empire gown, came trooping into the room. Their curiously clumsy movements caused Ronan to scrutinise them somewhat closely, but it was not until, in response to a wild outburst on wheezy flutes and derelict bagpipes, the assembly commenced dancing, that he awoke to the fact which now seemed obvious enough, that these weird-looking women were not women at all, but merely men mummers.