He stopped at the door of a cabin a hundred yards away from the inn and knocked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he lifted the latch and opened the door.
"Are you there, Kate?" cried he into the dark interior of the place.
"Sure, and where else would I be?" replied a wheezy voice. "Who are you, lettin' the draught in on me? Oh! glory be to Heaven! it's Mr. Michael himself."
"Come in," said French, and the girl followed him into the one room where Mrs. Moriarty kept herself and her hens—two of them were roosting on the rafters—and where she was sitting now over a bit of fire, with her bonnet on to keep the "cowld" from her head, and a short black pipe between her teeth. It was an appalling place considered as a human dwelling. The floor was of clay, the window had only one practicable pane, the rest were broken and stuffed with rags. A heap of rags in the corner did duty for a bed. By the fire and beside the old lady, who was sitting on a stool, a bantam hen brooding in the warmth cocked one bloodshot eye up at the visitors.
"I've brought a young lady to see you, Kate," said Mr. French. "Talk to her and tell her of the fairies, for I'm going down the road to see Mr. Janes, and I won't be a minute, and I'll send you a drop of whisky from the inn to warm your gizzard when I get back."
"Sure, it's welcome she is," said the old woman. "But it isn't a seat I have to ask her to sit on, and I stuck to this ould stool wid the rheumatiz in me legs. Get out wid you, Norah," making a dive with a bit of stick at the bantam, which, taking the hint, fluttered into a corner, "and make way for the young lady. You'll excuse her, miss; she's the only one of siven I brought up wid me own hand. Sure, it's not from anywhere in these parts you've come from?"
She was peering up from under her bonnet at the girl's face, and Violet, fascinated by that terrible purblind gaze, thought that she had never seen tragedy written on a human countenance so plainly as on the stone-like mask which the red glimmer of the turf fire showed up to her beneath the bonnet of the old woman.
"No," said she; "I come from America."
"Ochone!" cried Mrs. Moriarty. "Sure, it's there me boy Mike went forty years ago—forty years ago!—and niver a word or a letther from him for twenty long years. Maybe you never chanced to hear of him, miss? He was in the bricklayin'. Six-fut-six he stood widout his brogues, and the lovely red hair on the head of him was curly as a rethraver's back. And, sure, what am I talkin' about? It's grey he'd be now. Ochone! afther all thim years!"
"No," said the girl, "I never heard of him; but America is a big place. Cheer up. You may hear of him yet, and here's something that may bring you luck!"