“Lord save us!” said Mr Murphy, whose crimson visage had become mottled with white. “What’s that you’re saying, Con Cogan? Sure, the ghost carriage wouldn’t be makin’ all that nise.”
“Wouldn’t it?” replied Con, whose teeth were chattering. “Tim Finnegan, ’fore he died, told me it rattled like a dunkey-cart when it was chasin’ him, and the fellow that drove it was peltin’ him all the time wid skulls an’ crossbones.”
“I’ve heerd tell he has no power over childer; and if one keeps one’s eyes tight shut, he don’t see you as long as you don’t see him,” said Mr Murphy, “so I’m goin’ to shut me eyes.”
“So’m I,” said Con.
“Patsy, avick,” said Mr Murphy in a softened tone, but without leaving hold of the boy.
“What is it, Mr Murphy?” asked Patsy.
“Keep your eyes wide open and tell us what you see, for he has no power over childer, and he can’t see thim, by the same token, for Father O’Hara tould me so.”
“I will, Mr Murphy.”
Now Patsy, who was half a savage, had a savage’s acute sense of hearing, and, more than that, of knowing what it was he heard. He could tell the movements of a stoat from those of a rabbit. He knew every cart and carriage for miles round by the sound it made, and he knew now quite well that the thing coming along the drive was no ghost carriage, but Tim Brady’s dung-cart, for the left wheel had a squeak of its own that was quite unmistakable.
Mr Brady’s business in life was to collect manure and sell it, and as he had the habit of stopping at public-houses and places on the way home, he was often late in his peregrinations.