“That’s comforting, anyhow,” he said, after a few whiffs. “Now, if I could only find a stone to sit upon. Troth, I might as well look for a stone in the midst av the say, or the big bay of Tralore, as—Hullo! what’s yonder, anyhow?”
Paddy was on the bare brow of a steep hill; but on rounding a hummock and looking back, he found one side of it was dark and free from snow. He returned, and gave the darkness a poke with his stick, and the stick struck—nothing. It was the entrance to a cave.
“I’ll just light a match and have a look,” says Paddy.
The feeble glimmer revealed only a portion of what seemed a great vault.
“I’ll creep in for a moment, out av the cowld,” says Paddy, “and stand in a corner; sure there can’t be any crayture worse than meself in the cave.”
It was an eerisome situation enough, but our gallant Irishman did not mind it a bit.
For fully five minutes he smoked, when he thought, or fancied he thought, he heard a sigh.
“It’s draining I am entoirely; who could be there; at all?”
Presently the sigh—a heavy, long-drawn one—was repeated. There could be no mistake about it this time.
“Ghost of Saint Patrick!” thinks Paddy; “is it in the cave av an evil spirit I am? But never moind, it’s sleeping he is, anyhow. I’ll have a look, and chance it.”