What he said further then to Marg was, that all he’d care to do now was, to have leave to rest himself awhile before going back again; and that he was trying the water of the Holy Well for a bad foot he had. But he had been advised to do the cure secretly, and that was how he chanced to be coming there so late to the Fairy Cleft.
“But,” says Ratigan, “I never said, to man nor mortal except yourself, who I am. You’re the only living soul in Ardenoo that I have any wish to speak to; and I’ll trust to you to say nothing!”
“Very well!” said Marg, a bit puzzled why he should want nothing said. But, like many another, she was proud to be told what no one else knew.
“And where do you stop?” said Marg then.
“Beyant in the town,” said Ratigan, telling the truth for once; “Mrs. Melia that lets me sleep in the hay-loft that she has leaning up at the back of the house; and then it’s not so expensive on a poor man like Patsy. And, besides, I’d liefer not to be inside the shop; I can’t abide the least smell of drink!”
Mrs. Melia could have told a different story about that, for the American, as he was called at the shop, was the talk of the whole place, the way he was going on with every play-boy that was there, treating them all. And she could get no money out of him, only now and then. He would always be telling her, that he was expecting funds from his agent in America by the next mail.
Well, that agent lived quite convenient to Ardenoo! and was going about on four legs, as long as he would be let. There was no doubt that Ratigan had some way of getting money into his pocket; and also that cattle and other things were disappearing, no one knew how; neither did any one know whose turn it would be next.
There is something very curious about cows and the things that will happen to them. Dark Moll had a story she was fond of relating, about Andy McGuinness, long ago, that saw a strange woman dressed in green, and long hair as yellow as butter flowing down her back, and she was milking Andy’s fine cow one summer evening. So Andy caught the cow by the tail, when the woman disappeared at sight of him. And by that means he got inside the Furry Hills. And there was the fairy-woman he had seen, and she with a fairy child in her arms. And Andy had to promise her that she might take a pint of milk every night for the child. And then he found himself out again with his cow safe in his own fields. And after that he had no more trouble with her. She had been no use to him up to that, giving only small sups of milk, and no yield of butter upon even what she gave.
Well, Moll said, now that all the cattle were disappearing, that it would be simple enough to find out all about them if only some one had the spirit to go to the Fairy Cleft like Andy, and see what was taking place there. She was right, too, as it happened, though not exactly in the way she meant. But no one had any wish to take that advice.
“It’s easy for them to talk, that will do nothing themselves! advice is always cheap!” they would say.