“IPs kilt ye’ll be!” wailed Pat—“it’s dead intirely ye’ll find yerselves when ye come back!”
“Come along, boys,” cried Phil, as he hurried up after Bruce. “Come, Pat. It’s all humbug.”
“Come along,” cried Bart; “you needn’t pretend to be frightened, Pat; you’re only humbugging. It’s my belief that you know all about it. Can’t I tell by your face whether you’re really frightened or not?”
“Me!” cried Pat, with a very queer intonation, that sounded like a mournful wail struggling with wild laughter. “Is it me? O woro-o-o! Isn’t it to danger yere goin thin! Don’t blame me if I didn’t warrun ye’s. Och, but it’s a black day intirely! Come along, boys,” he said to the others who were left. “Let’s go down out of this to the flure below.”
These last words were not heard by the “B. O. W. C.,” who were by this time in the attic, peering through the gloom, and waiting for a recurrence of the sound.
They listened for a long time, but they heard no noise at all. No shrieks, no knocks whatever were heard. At length they began to go about. They walked first towards that end of the attic where Pat’s room was, and the only noise they heard was the heavy footsteps of Pat as he ascended the stairs and entered his room.
“It’s my firm belief,” said Bart, “that Pat is at the bottom of all this humbug. Of course we won’t find anything. There won’t be so much as a knock, let alone a howl.”
They walked all about, and at last reached the place where the cupola arose. It was built over the main part of the Academy, from which wings extended on either side. This main part was taken up with the Academy hall, which, however, did not rise so high as the floor of the attic, and the consequence was, that there yawned here a dark abyss some fifteen feet in depth, and sixty or eighty feet square. Above rose the stout timbers, crossing one another in all directions, through the midst of? which ladders ascended into the cupola. Some loose planks laid across this abyss, from beam to beam, formed a rather dangerous pathway. This the boys traversed, and crossing to the opposite side, they wandered about the long, dark loft, gazing curiously in all directions. There was no flooring on this side, but only beams, with the laths and plaster of the lower rooms between them. Their search took them over this, but nothing whatever came of it.
They searched the whole attic most thoroughly, but could find nothing.
“Well, boys,” said Bart, “we can’t do anything more. For my part I’m fagged out, and I’m going to bed.”