'That's Mr. Lowe's man; 'tis what he's sent him to Dublin wid a note.'
'I see,' said Irons, with a great oath, which seemed to the maid wholly uncalled for; and he came up another step, and held the iron rail and shook it, like a man grasping a battle-axe, and stared straight at her, with a look so strange, and a visage so black, that she was half-frightened.
'A what's the matther wid you, Misther Irons?' she demanded.
But he stared on in silence, scowling through her face at vacancy, and swaying slightly as he griped the metal banister.
'I will,' he muttered, with another most unclerklike oath, and he took Katty by the hand, and shook it slowly in his own cold, damp grasp as he asked, with the same intense and forbidding look,
'Is Mr. Lowe in the house still?'
'He is, himself and Doctor Toole, in the back parlour.'
'Whisper him, Katty, this minute, there's a man has a thing to tell him.'
'What about?' enquired Katty.
'About a great malefactor.'