“Whisht!” said Frayne: “upon my word, I blieve the old Square's comin' to pay tis a visit; does any of yez hear a horse trottin' with a shoe loose?”
“I sartinly hear it,” observed Andy Morrow.
“And I,” said Ned himself.
There was now a general pause, and in the silence a horse, proceeding from the moors in the direction of the house, was distinctly heard; and nothing could be less problematical than that one of his shoes was loose.
“Boys, take care of yourselves,” said Shane Fadh, “if the Square comes, he won't be a pleasant customer—he was a terrible fellow in his day: I'll hould goold to silver that he'll have the smell of brimstone about him.”
“Nancy, where's your prayer now?” said M'Kinley, with a grin: “I think you had betther out with it, and thry if it keeps this old brimstone Square on the wrong side of the house.”
“Behave yourself, Alick; it's a shame for you to be sich a hardened crathur: upon my sannies, I blieve your afeard of neither God nor the divil—the Lord purtect and guard us from the dirty baste!”
“You mane particklarly them that uses short measures and light weights,” rejoined M'Kinley.
There was another pause, for the horseman was within a few perches of the crossroads. At this moment an unusual gust of wind, accompanied by torrents of rain, burst against the house with a violence that made its ribs creak; and the stranger's horse, the shoe still clanking, was distinctly heard to turn in from the road to Ned's door, where it stopped, and the next moment a loud knocking intimated the horseman's intention to enter. The company now looked at each other, as if uncertain what to do. Nancy herself grew pale, and, in the agitation of the moment, forgot to think of her protecting prayer. Biddy and Bessy Connolly started from the settle on which they had been sitting with their sweethearts, and sprung beside their uncle, on the hob. The stranger was still knocking with great violence, yet there was no disposition among the company to admit him, notwithstanding the severity of the night—blowing, as it really did, a perfect hurricane. At length a sheet of lightning flashed through the house, followed by an amazing loud clap of thunder; while, with a sudden push from without, the door gave way, and in stalked a personage Whose stature was at least six feet four, with dark eyes and complexion, and coal-black whiskers of an enormous size, the very image of the Squire they had been describing. He was dressed in a long black surtout, which him appear even taller than he actually was, had a pair of heavy boots upon and carried a tremendous whip, large enough to fell an ox. He was in a rage on entering; and the heavy, dark, close-knit-brows, from beneath which a pair of eyes, equally black, shot actual fire, whilst the Turk-like whiskers, which curled themselves up, as it were, in sympathy with his fury, joined to his towering height, gave him altogether, when we consider the frame of mind in which he found the company, an appalling and almost supernatural appearance.
“Confound you, for a knot of lazy scoundrels,” exclaimed the stranger, “why do you sit here so calmly, while any being craves admittance on such a night as this? Here, you lubber in the corner, with a pipe in your mouth, come and put up this horse of mine until the night settles.”