"Don't, Jane," Mick said sharply. That mournful sound had made him unhappy again about Pat.
"Come on out of that," said Patsy, "an' let's get some pears."
Aunt Mary always allowed them to play in the room where the apples and pears were stored. Besides apples and pears there were two wooden boxes full of clothes to dress up in—stiff, old-fashioned silks, Indian muslins, embroidered jackets, and a pair of white kid boots. Aunt Mary had worn these things when she was young and lived at Rowallan, before she turned to be a Roman Catholic and was driven out by her father. When they were tired of play they came downstairs to the parlour. This, they thought, was the most beautiful room in the world. There was a carpet with a wreath of roses on a grey ground, a cupboard with diamond panes, where Aunt Mary kept her china, and the deep window seat was filled with geraniums. Aunt Mary had a birthday present for Honeybird; she kissed her when she gave it; and said: "God and His Blessed Mother keep you, child." Then she cried a little, till they all felt inclined to cry with her. But she jumped up, and said it was time she baked the soda bread for tea. When the bread was baked and the table laid Aunt Mary went to the half-door to look out for Uncle Niel.
"I always know when he's comin' by your face, Aunt Mary," Jane said.
Aunt Mary laughed. "Indeed, I'm not surprised," she said; "for I can't remember a day when I didn't watch for his coming."
He came soon, and they had tea, and then he told them fairy tales by the kitchen fire. In the middle of a story Mick suddenly noticed Aunt Mary's face as she looked up from her knitting to watch her brother. Jane was right; her face changed when she looked at him, her eyes seemed to shine. When he and Jane were old, and lived together as they had planned to do, they would love each other like that. Uncle Niel was like their father, Lull had once told them. She said there was not a finer gentleman in Ireland, and held him up to Mick and Patsy as a pattern of what they ought to be when they were men. Mick agreed with her. Uncle Niel was the kindest person he knew; after being with him Mick always felt he would like to be more polite to the others. When he was old he would be as polite to Jane as Uncle Niel was to Aunt Mary. On the way home it was very dark, and they all walked close to Uncle Niel going through the loney. He laughed at them, but Jane said she was afraid of the murderer whose bones rattled in the breeze.
"It's the first time I've heard of him or his bones," Uncle Niel said, "and I've been through the loney at all hours of the day and night."
"Did ye niver hear tell of Skyan the Bugler?" said Honeybird, "for I'm quare an' scared of him myself."
Uncle Niel picked her up in his arms. "What would Skyan the Bugler want with you?" he said.
"'Deed, he might be after marryin' me," she said, "an' ye know I wouldn't like that."