We all returned to the sitting room, and had scarcely been there five minutes when we heard my three brothers coming in, in their usual way, by the back door. They tramped into the sitting room, noisy, dirty, wet with spray, and hungry, and demanded supper in a loud and collected voice. My mother looked at them with a severe aspect, and said they deserved none.
“Why, mum, what’s the matter?” said Ted; “what have we been doing now, or what have we not done, that we don’t deserve any supper, after pulling for two hours from Circular Quay, against a howling, black north-easter?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean. It is most inconsiderate of you to play such silly tricks upon us.”
Ted gazed at her in genuine astonishment. “Silly tricks, mother! What silly tricks?” (Julia crossed herself, and trembled visibly as the bell again rang.)
My mother, at once satisfied that Ted and my other brothers really knew nothing of the mysterious bell-ringing, quickly explained the cause of her anger.
“Let us go and see if we can find out,” said Ted. “You two boys, and you, Julia, get all the stable lanterns, light them, and we’ll start out together—two on one side of the house and two on the other. Some one must be up to a trick!”
Julia, who was a huge, raw-boned Irish girl, as strong as a working bullock, but not so graceful, again crossed herself, and began to weep.
“What’s the matter with you?” said Ted angrily.
“Shure, an’ there was tirrible murders committed here in the ould convict days,” she whimpered. “The polace sargint’s wife at Sint Leonards tould me all about it. There was three souldiers murdered down beyant on the beach, by some convicts, whin they was atin’ their supper, an’ there’s people near about now that saw all the blood and——”
“Stop it, you great lumbering idiot!” shouted Ted, as my eldest sister began to laugh hysterically, and the youngest, made a terrified dart to mother’s skirts.