The young people soon returned from their expedition on Lake Crena. Patrick and Gerald both seemed very much excited, Janet looked resolved and defiant, Sophy alarmed.
"What's the matter with you, Patrick?" said the squire. "I see mischief in that eye of yours. What are you after?"
"Oh, nothing, uncle, nothing," replied the lad. "It is only that Miss Janet May has been rubbing me up. She doesn't believe any of the stories I tell her about Lake Crena."
"Of course I don't," said Janet. "Who would believe a schoolboy's wild chattering nonsense?"
Patrick's black eyes flashed.
"Come, come," said the squire soothingly, and looking with half appeal at Janet; "this fine lad is close on seventeen. He is scarcely to be termed a schoolboy."
"Oh, well, it does not matter what he is called," continued Janet. "If I thought he were only joking, I shouldn't mind; but when he tells me in sober earnest that a witch does live in the island in the center of the lake; that she comes out on winter nights and curses the people who sail on the lake; and, in short, that she's a sort of malevolent old dame who belongs to the Dark Ages, I simply refuse to believe him."
The squire looked rather startled while Janet was speaking.
"You shouldn't talk of these things," he said to Patrick. "It's all stuff and nonsense. Lake Crena is Lake Crena, the sweetest, sunniest spot in the world all through the summer months; in the winter she is the Witch's Cauldron, and we leave her alone, that's all. Now, young folks, come in to lunch."
Janet did not say anything further, but when in the course of the afternoon the whole party were driving in a great big wagonette to Court Macsherry, Patrick and she found themselves side by side.