The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Bound in Cloth, with Picture Wrappers.

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T. FISHER UNWIN, Ltd., 1, Adelphi Terrace, LONDON.

Patsy

by

H. de. Vere Stacpoole

London

C. Fisher Unwin L^td

Adelphi Terrace

[All rights reserved]

CONTENTS

PATSY

CHAPTER I
WHERE THE WILD GEESE FLY

A flock of wild geese flying across the sunset far away, remote, fantastic, the only living things visible in a world filling with shadows, lent the last touch of beauty to the vast and lonely moors.

“They’re makin’ for the pools of Cloyne, sir,” said the keeper.

Mr Fanshawe watched the flock pass and vanish in the amber distance like a wreath of smoke. Away to the left, covering themselves with night and gloom, stood the hills of Glynn, where the golden eagle still has its eyrie, and the wild goat its home. From there, away to the west, the great moors stretched to the hills of Cloyne.

It was a typical Irish winter’s evening, the sky threatening and forgetting to rain, the air damp and filled with the scent of the earth, near things indistinct in the gathering twilight, and far things seeming near.

From where Mr Fanshawe stood, with his pipe in his mouth and his gun under his arm, you might have started with a brave heart to walk to the hills of Cloyne. Ten miles distant, or at most twelve, they seemed, those hills that lay thirty Irish miles away.

Fanshawe was staying for the hunting with Mr Trench of Dunboyne House. He had come out to-day to have a shot at the snipe, and he had not done badly, to judge by the weight of the bag Micky Finn, the old keeper, was carrying.

“Well,” said the young man, refilling and lighting his pipe, “we’d better be getting back. How far are we from the house, Micky?”

“A matter of five mile be the boggs, sir, an’ siven be the road; which way would your ’arner be chusin’ to take?”

“The road,” said Mr Fanshawe, and, followed by Micky and the dogs, he struck towards the high-road from Dunbeg which goes across the moors white and straight like a chalk-line drawn by a giant.

“You were afther askin’ me, sir, what time the letters came from Dunbeg,” said Micky, as they stepped on to the highway. “Here’s Larry and the letters now, comin’ as hard as he can pelt two hours late, the blackguyard! He’s been stoppin’ to drink at Billy Sheehan’s, or colloguing wid the girls; musha, but it’s little he cares who waits for their letters whin the bottle’s before him.”

Mr Fanshawe shaded his eyes, and with a constriction of the heart watched the horseman and the horse coming at a furious pace and developing with magical speed against the sunset. The sound of the hoofs, like the sound of castanets in the hands of a madman, came on the breeze.

The horseman, a ragged individual with a leer on his face, no boots on his feet, and a post-bag slung on his back, reined in when he came level with the keeper and the gentleman, bringing his horse literally on its haunches.

“Any letters for Mr Fanshawe, Larry?” asked the keeper.

“Begob!” said Larry, swinging the post-bag round and opening it, “there’s letters enough for a dozen, but I’m no schollard to tell yiz who thir for; will y’ be afther puttin’ your hand in the bag, sir, and takin’ your chice?”

Mr Fanshawe did as he was invited. There was only one letter for him, all the rest were for Mr Trench or members of his household.

It was not the letter he had been half expecting by every post for weeks and weeks past, and he opened it with a gloomy brow, and read it by the light of sunset as Larry rode on and the sound of the hoofs died away on the high-road.

To be young, rich, healthy, good-looking, and yet unhappy! No other magician but Love could bring about such an extraordinary concatenation of states.

Love had done this in the case of Mr Fanshawe.

As for the letter, it was addressed from Glen Druid House, Tullagh, Mid Meath, and it ran:

“Dear Richard,—I have only just been informed that you are staying with my friends the Trenches, to whom, through you, I send my very kind regards.

“This house is only some forty miles from where you are now, and as I have a small house-party coming on the 10th, the happy idea has occurred to me that you might join us, if your engagements will permit you so to do. You will find shooting enough to please you, I think, in the coverts, and the O’Farrel’s hounds meet twice a week. You will also find a sincere welcome from your old friend,

“Selina Seagrave.

“P.S.—I am here, at present, by myself. I would be quite alone were it not that I have your cousin Robert’s children staying with me. Bob (Lord Gawdor), Doris, and Selina my namesake.”

“Bother the children!” said Mr Fanshawe, thrusting the letter into the pocket of his shooting coat, and little dreaming what pleasant factors in the making of his fate those same children were to be.

He was rather fond of children, as a matter of fact, but he was in love, and he had been deciphering Lady Seagrave’s old-fashioned caligraphy in the hope of finding, like a flower in a wilderness, the magical name of Violet Lestrange.

“Do you know anything of Glen Druid House, near Tullagh, Micky?” he asked, as they trudged along together in the deepening twilight.

“Yes, sor,” replied Micky; “it’s be Castle Knock over beyant thim hills. It was Mr Moriarty’s in the ould days. The place went to rot an’ ruin whin the ould gintleman died, but they do be tellin’ me it’s changed hands to an ould lady from over the wather.”

“Is there good shooting?”

“Shutin’!” said Micky, speaking more from a desire to be amiable than from absolute knowledge. “Sure, it’s not a gun you’d want there at all, at all, for you could knock the cock phisints down wid your fist. Phisints! ay, be jabers! an’ woodcock an’ teal; and as for hares an’ rabbits, the groun’s is jumpin’ an’ runnin’ wid them.”

“If nothing better turns up,” said Mr Fanshawe to himself, “I’m not sure that I won’t accept the old girl’s invitation;” and ten days later, as you may have guessed from this preamble, he did.

CHAPTER II
PATSY

“Miss Kiligrew,” said little Lord Gawdor, looking up from his slate and the multiplication sum on it that wouldn’t come right.

“Yes, Robert?”

“William, the page-boy, was sent away yesterday for stealing the jam.”

“Go on with your sum,” answered the governess, who was seated at the other end of the table helping Doris, little Lord Gawdor’s sister, to make a map. “This is the third time you have interrupted me with frivolous remarks. How can you expect to make your sum come right if you do not fix your mind on your slate?”

“I will in a minit,” said his lordship; “but I want to tell you, he’d cribbed a pot of plum jam, and he heard some one coming, and he popped it in the copper in the back kitchen where the clothes were boiling. Gran’ma said she never heard of an act of such—what was it, Doris?”

“Turpentine, I think,” replied Doris, throwing back her golden hair from her forehead, relieved to escape for a moment from the monotony of map-making.

“‘Turpitude,’ I suppose you mean,” said Miss Kiligrew.

“Yes, that was it,” said Lord Gawdor. “What’s it mean?”

“Wickedness,” replied Miss Kiligrew. “Go on with your sum.”

“I will; but I want just to tell you, he went away yesterday, and gran’ma said to Mrs Kinsella the cook she didn’t know what she’d do for a page-boy, and cook said she’d try and get Patsy Rooney, the son of the keeper, to come. He’s that red-headed boy we saw carrying the rabbits in the park the other day. My eye!” he concluded with a burst of laughter, “won’t he look funny in buttons!”

“Go on with your sum,” said Miss Kiligrew severely, “and don’t use vulgar expressions before your sister. Who taught you to say that?”

“What?”

“My eye.”

“William, I b’lieve.”

“Well, it is a very good thing he was sent about his business. Go on with your sum.”

Lord Gawdor did as he was bid, and there was silence for a while, broken only by the squeaking of his pencil on the slate and an occasional clicking sound from under the table, where Selina, his youngest sister, aged five, was seated on the floor playing with a box of bricks. They were in the day nursery, which was also the schoolroom, of Glen Druid Park, a great old Irish country house.

Little Lord Gawdor’s mother was dead and his father was in India. He and his sisters were living with their grandmother, Lady Seagrave. It was three weeks before Christmas, and as Lady Seagrave had invited a house-party, the house was in a state of upset owing to the preparations. Downstairs rooms were being cleaned and dusted, carpets taken up and shaken, mirrors polished, and mattresses standing to air before huge fires.

All the fun of a general house-cleaning was going on, and it seemed very hard to Lord Gawdor and Doris that they had to sit all the morning doing sums and making maps instead of helping to increase the confusion down below.

“I’ve done my sum,” said his lordship at last.

“When I have finished demarcating this frontier I will look at it,” said Miss Kiligrew, who had a paint brush in her hand, and was in the act of tinting with red the boundary line between Cochin China and Somewhere-else.

“All right,” said the boy; “don’t hurry, I can wait as long as you like.” He left the chair and, going to the window, he climbed on to the window-seat and looked out at the park. He had scarcely been a minute at the window when he gave a cry.

“Miss Kiligrew—come here, quick!”

The governess and Doris left the table and came to the window.

“That’s him,” said Lord Gawdor, pointing to a small figure trudging across the park.

“Who?” asked the governess.

“Patsy Rooney,” replied he.

“How dare you call me from my work to look at such nonsense!” cried Miss Kiligrew. “Have you no regard for the value of my time?”

“Patsy isn’t nonsense,” replied his lordship. “They say he can trap rabbits better than his father, and he keeps the ferrits and helps to clean the guns, and,” finished up Lord Gawdor, dropping off the window-seat and coming back wearily to the table, “I wish to goodness I was him!”

CHAPTER III
THE FORM IN THE WOOD

It had snowed slightly in the early morning, and enough snow lay on the ground to take the track of a hare.

The ground told quite a lot of things to Patsy Rooney as he made his way across Glen Druid Park from his father’s cottage to the little village of Castle Knock, which lies beyond the park a mile to the west, where the Tullagh road meets the road to Kilgobbin.

Out in the open spaces the great feet of the crows had left their mark clear cut in the snow. Crossing them you could see the lesser traces of the ringed plover, and all sorts of little birds had left tiny footprints where the snow lay thin and white as a sheet on the borders of the beech woods.

All kinds of rare birds came to Glen Druid Park, for the place had been deserted so long that there was no one to trouble them, except Patsy’s father, who was the keeper, and who lived in the keeper’s cottage close to the Big House.

The Big House had been deserted for years, but it was deserted no longer, for only that autumn Lady Seagrave had taken it, and she and her family had already moved in; and there were, as I have hinted, to be great doings at Christmas, and the whole country-side was talking of the wonderful things that were to happen when the “quality” arrived.

By the “quality” the country people meant the guests who were coming over from England. Lords and ladies were reputed to be coming, and bringing their hunting horses with them, and there was a rumour that a bishop was coming, too. Patsy was anxious enough to see the lords and ladies, but he was more anxious still to see the bishop; what such a thing was like he could not in the least imagine. He could have asked, but he didn’t: firstly, because he was a person of such little importance that no one would have been bothered answering him; and secondly, because he did not want to spoil the sight when it came by knowing what it would be like beforehand. He thought it was some sort of animal.

He was going through the beech woods now at a “sweep’s trot” to keep himself warm. He had an old stake plucked from a fence in his hand, and as he ran he would every now and then twirl the stake round his head and give a “whoop” that sent the startled birds fluttering through the branches and the rabbits scuttling through the withered fern.

He was not going through the thick of the wood, but down a broad drive that was the shortest cut to the village; and he did not twirl the stake round his head and whoop for the fun of the thing, but to keep up his courage. For the drive was just the place where the “carriage” was always met.

Patsy’s uncle had seen the “carriage,” or said he had. So had a lot of other people. It was a hearse with plumes, driven by a man without a head, and it was supposed to haunt the grounds of Glen Druid Park, sometimes even in daylight.

The horrible thing about it was that when the man without the head saw you, he made straight for you; and, if he overtook you, down he would get and bundle you into the vehicle and drive off, and then you were done for.

The snow on the drive, like the snow on the grass of the park, showed all sorts of little footprints. Tracks of hares and rabbits and the trail of a stoat, Patsy knew and could distinguish them all. Though he could neither read or write, he knew the habits and names of all the wild animals and birds that were to be seen in the woods and ways around; he knew all the tales about the fairies that lived under the ferns in the glens, and the cluricaunes that cobbled the fairies’ boots. He had never seen a cluricaune or a fairy, but he believed in them, notwithstanding the fact that he had a very sharp and practical mind where the ordinary business of life was concerned.

Suddenly Patsy came to a stand close to the trunk of a great beech tree. He had caught a glimpse of something in the wood on the right-hand side of the drive.

CHAPTER IV
CON COGAN

It looked like a heap of old clothes at first sight, then he made it out to be the figure of a man on his knees engaged in taking a rabbit from a snare.

He was a forlorn-looking man in tatters, and with long hair that hung over his shoulders, and, bent down there amidst the withered ferns, and under the shadow of the tree branches, he looked not unlike a gnome or the ghost of a robber; but he did not frighten the boy, who recognised the figure at once as that of his uncle, Con Cogan.

Con Cogan had once been the blacksmith at Castle Knock, but he had sold his business and taken to bad ways, and he was now the terror of the country-side. He had no house of his own, but just lived as he could, sleeping in barns and hayricks, sometimes begging his food, sometimes stealing it. He was suspected of being a highway robber, but he had never been caught in the act; and though a good many people knew things about him that would have sent him to prison, they never told: not because they had any special love for him, but because they were afraid. It was said that he had the evil eye, and that if he cast a “black look” on a person it would be all over with them and they would never do another day’s good. Besides this, he always carried a blackthorn stick with knobs on it; there were seven notches on the handle of it, and people said that every notch stood for a man he had killed.

As the boy stood watching his uncle, the latter suddenly rose up with the dead rabbit he had caught in his hand, and seeing his nephew gave him good-morning.

“And where are you off to, Patsy?” said he.

“I’m going on an arrand,” replied Patsy.

“And where’s that?” asked Con, as he stuffed the rabbit into the pocket of his old overcoat, and took up the blackthorn stick he had dropped.

“To Castle Knock,” replied Patsy.

“And what are you going to do with yourself when you get to Castle Knock?” asked Con.

“I’m goin’ to do me arrand.”

“Blisther you and your arrands!” shouted his uncle. “Talk English, will yiz, or I’ll prod the sinse out of you with the end of me blackthorn stick!”

“Ohone!” cried Patsy. “Sure, it’s skinned alive I’ll be if I’m not back by twelve with the ca’tridges for the guns that’s waitin’ at the post-office with the lethers for the Big House.”

“So they’ve made you the postman,” said Con.

“Bob Murphy’s laid up with the rheumatism,” replied Con’s nephew. “Crool bad he is; and me father says to me: ‘Away wid you, Patsy, to Castle Knock for the lethers, and ax thim has the ca’tridges for the guns come from Dublin, and fetch thim if they have. And if you drop wan of them it’s skinned alive you’ll be, or me name’s not Micky Rooney.’”

“Oh, he did, did he?” said Con.

“Them’s were his words,” said Patsy; “so I must be runnin’ on me arrand.”

“Oh, you must be runnin’ on your arrand, must you?” asked Con in a meditative tone.

“I must.”

“And your daddy said he’d skin you alive if you weren’t quick, did he?”

“He did.”

“Well, it’s I that’ll be skinnin’ you dead in two ticks if you don’t hould your whisht and be doin’ my bidding.”

“Ohone!” wailed Patsy.

“Whisht!” shouted Con.

Patsy became dumb. He would have darted off like a rabbit and tried to escape by running, only he was afraid of being brought to earth by Con’s blackthorn stick hurled after him, for Con was a terrible marksman, and he had been known a kill a pheasant thirty paces off with no other weapon than his deftly-flung stick.

“I’m not wishful to get you in trouble, Patsy,” said Con, “it’s not that I’m after; so I’ll just be walkin’ beside you on the way to Castle Knock, and I’ll give you the slip before we catch sight of the village, for there’s a policeman there I’m not wishful to meet, and it’s livin’ in an old tree I am to keep out of his way. What I want to ask you is, when are the quality comin’ to the Big House?”

“They’re comin’ before Chris’mas,” replied Patsy. “Lords and ladies and horses and bishop and all.”

“And who’s staying at the Big House now?”

“Old Lady Seagrave and her gran’childer,” replied Patsy, as he trotted beside his uncle.

“And how many gran’childer has the old lady?” asked Con.

“Three,” replied Patsy. “There’s the little lord; he wears putty leggin’s and a shootin’ coat an’ all, and he only nine; and there’s Miss Doris, wid the long gold hair, and she’s eight; then there’s Selina.”

“What’s that?” asked Con.

“Selina.”

“And what the divil’s Selina?”

“The baby; leastways, they call her the baby. Selina’s her name, and she’s five; she gets in the coal-scuttle when she has the chanst, she’s that small and over-bould. Biddy Mahony is their nurse, and she told me all about them. They eats off china, wid silver forks.”

“Silver forks, did you say?” asked Con.

“Yes, and spoons.”

“Patsy.”

“Yes?”

“It’s thrubled with thinkin’ I am.”

“And what are you thinkin’ about?” asked Patsy anxiously.

“I was thinkin’,” replied Con, “that if you were inside the Big House and I was outside you might maybe hand me out wan or two, or maybe three, of thim silver spoons and forks.”

“But, sure, that would be stealin’,” said Patsy.

“Who said it wouldn’t?” answered Con.

There was no reply to be made to this, so they trudged along in silence.

They had not gone more than two hundred yards when Con left the drive and turned down a path to the right.

CHAPTER V
THE MAN IN THE TREE

“Sure, this isn’t the way to Castle Knock!” cried Patsy, drawing back.

“And who said it was?” replied Con, seizing him by the hand. “Is it geography you’d be teachin’ me, or what ails you at all, at all? Come on wid you now, or it’s the knock without the castle you’ll be getting in a minit.”

“Uncle Con,” said Patsy, when they had gone some distance, “where are you taking me?”

“Come along and you’ll see,” replied Con.

A moment later, to the boy’s relief, Con struck into a path to the left, and they found themselves in a little glade in the centre of which stood the remains of a great oak.

“Here we are,” said Con; “I’ve brought you to see Paddy Murphy, who’s hidin’ from the police.”

All the branches of the oak were gone and just ten feet of the bole remained, and it looked like a great stilton cheese the centre of which has been scooped out and eaten.

“Are you there?” cried Con, halting about ten paces from the oak.

“Faith, and I b’lave I am,” replied a voice.

“Well, the coast’s clear,” replied Con, “so out you may come.”

A scrambling noise came from the tree, and a close-cropped head appeared over the edge of the bole; the head was followed by a body, next instant a fat little man was standing on the turf beside Con and Patsy. He had a jolly red face and bright, twinkling eyes.

It would be more correct to say that at first his face seemed jolly, for when you had been speaking to him a minute or so, the face of this little man seemed no longer humorous, but, somehow, dreadful.

At first sight Con Cogan was a terrible-looking man, but when you had spoken to him for a while you did not feel in the least afraid of him. It was different with Paddy Murphy.

Con took the rabbit out of his pocket and began to skin it, whilst Mr Murphy lit a fire with dry sticks and a tinder-box.

All the time they talked, and Patsy stood by listening and shivering, for he knew that the little man was a road robber who had been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment only six months before, and who, as the whole country-side knew, had broken out of gaol and was in hiding from the police.

“I think I can fix it up at the Big House,” said Con, as he skinned his rabbit. “Here’s me sister’s boy, Patsy Rooney, knows one of the servants. I’m thinkin’ if we shoved him in through the little scullery window he could open the door to us; there’s tons of silver spoons and forks to be had for the pickin’ up.”

“Bother spoons and forks!” replied the little man; “who wants spoons and forks when they can put their hands on diamonds and jewels? Sure, isn’t there a party of lords and ladies coming over for Chris’mas, and what do lords and ladies wear but diamonds and jewels?”

“But,” said Con, pausing with the skinned rabbit in his hand, “supposing they do wear diamonds and jewels, how are we to get them off them?”

“Off them?” replied Mr Murphy. “Do you suppose they sleep in them? Why, every one of them undresses every night of their lives—not like you an’ me sleeping in this ould tree—and off they takes their jew’lery and puts them in boxes.”

“I see,” said Con; “and you’d be after slippin’ into the house when they were all a-bed, and whippin’ off with the boxes.”

“That’s my meaning,” replied Mr Murphy. “Hand me the rabbit till I stick him on the spit, for it’s hungry I am and I wants me breakfast.” He put the rabbit to roast by the fire he had built, and then he went on. “That’s my meaning; but to get into the house there’s only one way, and that’s to slip a gossoon through the little scullery window; and there’s only one gossoon of me acquaintance I’d trust with the job, and this is him.” He suddenly pounced on Patsy. “Now then, Patsy,” said he, “confess your sins before I makes a freemason of you. When did you say the quality was coming to the Big House?”

“This day week,” replied Patsy; “and don’t be twistin’ me arm, it’s the truth I’m telling you.”

“Are you wishful and willin’ to get through the window and open the door to us?”

“No—yes—ow, let go of me arm!” shrieked the unfortunate Patsy, whose arm had received a sudden twitch from behind that nearly wrenched if from the socket.

“Wishful and willin’?” reiterated Mr Murphy.

“Yes!” cried Patsy.

“Will yiz swear to do me biddin’?”

“I will.”

“Will yiz swear to be ready and waitin’ for us whenever we want you, which won’t be before this day week?”

“I will.”

“Now then, Con,” said Mr. Murphy, “give me that burning stick out of the fire till I brands him with the mark and makes a freemason of him, so’s the pain will larn him what he’ll get if he breaks his oath.”

He was bending for the stick, when Patsy, who was now on his knees, mad with terror, made a frantic dash for liberty between Mr. Murphy’s legs. That gentleman put off his balance, made a grab at Con; Con’s foot slipped, and Con, Mr. Murphy, rabbit and all, went rolling into the ashes of the fire.

When they had collected themselves and shaken the cinders out of their hair Patsy Rooney was gone.

CHAPTER VI
THE HIRING OF PATSY

Patsy ran and ran. He was so frightened that at first he did not know where he was running to, and when he came to his senses he was more than half-way to Castle Knock. Paddy Murphy had nearly scared him to death, and no wonder, for the road robber was the terror of the country-side. He had robbed the mails, he had broken into houses, and it was said, that in a fit of rage he had once roasted a live baby.

That was, of course, nonsense, yet Patsy remembered it; and when he thought of the red-hot stick and the freemasonry business it made him run all the faster, so that when he arrived in Castle Knock he was out of breath and nearly spent.

He found the letters waiting for him at the post-office and a great case of cartridges from Truelock & Harris, the gun-makers in Dublin. It was addressed to Mr Fanshawe, one of the guests expected for Christmas; and with the cartridges under one arm and the mail-bag with the letters slung over his back, he started across the park, keeping a bright look-out for fear of meeting his uncle.

He crossed the park in safety, and came round by the back way through the stable-yard to the kitchen entrance of the Big House. As he came through the yard Bumble, the watch-dog, dashed out of his kennel and tried to “fetch” him.

Bumble was a most extraordinary-looking dog. He was as big as a sheep, and his head was like a muff; to look at him you never could have imagined that his great-great-grandfather had been a greyhound, yet he had.

His great-great-grandmother had been an old Irish wolf hound. His mother was a bob-tailed collie, and he had an uncle who was a Dandy Dinmont. He was a mongrel, in short.

Patsy was not a bit afraid of Bumble, for the old dog had lost his teeth and was quite harmless, despite his ferocious appearance. He took his parcels round to the kitchen door and knocked; and whilst he stood waiting to be let in, he looked around him hoping to catch a sight of the children.

The children interested Patsy a lot. He had never spoken to them, but he had seen them at a distance in the park, driving in the governess-cart with their governess.

Once he had met them all quite close in the drive, and Selina had laughed and nodded to him in quite a friendly way; the other children smiled, but Miss Kiligrew frowned, and he heard her say:

“Selina, who is that dirty little boy you are nodding to? Remember that you are a lady.”

Patsy was remembering this incident when the kitchen door was flung open, and Mrs Kinsella, the great fat cook, herself appeared before him, with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow and her hands all covered with flour.

“Why, it’s Patsy Rooney!” she cried. “And it’s you I’ve been sending to look for, and here you are come of yourself.”

She led the way down a stone passage into a huge old-fashioned kitchen, where a number of kitchen-maids were at work polishing pots and pans.

“Them’s the letters,” said Patsy, laying the bag on the table, “and them’s is the ca’tridges for the gintleman that’s comin’. Don’t let them near the fire, or it’s blown to blazes you’ll be, and the house along with you.”

“Take them away,” said Mrs Kinsella; “I don’t want any such things in my nice clean kitchen. Put them in a bucket of water, Jane, and maybe they’ll be safe. Take up your letters, Patsy, and follow me, for her ladyship wants to see you.”

“To see me?” cried Patsy in alarm.

“Yourself, and no one else,” replied the cook.

“O Mrs Kinsella, what have I been doin’ at all, at all!” cried Patsy, so flurried out of his wits as not to be able to remember his sins. “Is it the thraps I’ve been settin’ in the wood?”

“You come along,” said Mrs Kinsella, who had washed her hands and rolled down her sleeves. “You come along, and you’ll soon see, only be sure, when she speaks to you, say ‘Yes, my lady,’ that’s all you need say; I’ll do the tellin’ and the talkin’. Wipe your boots on the mat here, and keep your mouth shut, and not hanging open like a rat-trap with a broken spring. Come here now till I brush your head, for you wouldn’t go before her ladyship with your hair standin’ up like the bristles on a broom.”

She brushed his hair with an old brush which one of the scullery maids fetched, and then she washed his face with soap, and rubbed it with a towel till it shone; Patsy, submitting without a word, for he was too terrified now to ask questions.

“Now come along,” said the cook, when she had made him fairly presentable. “And what are you to say when her ladyship speaks to you?”

“Yes, me lady,” replied Patsy promptly.

“That’s right, and don’t forget,” replied Mrs Kinsella; and, followed by Patsy, she left the kitchen.

Patsy, who had never been beyond the kitchen of the Big House before, followed his guide down a long stone passage, up a flight of steps, through a swing-door, then along a corridor from which they entered a great hall. Patsy had never seen anything like this, for the floor of the hall was of polished oak, shining like glass; a staircase, so broad that you might have driven a coach and horses up it, led from the hall to the first landing. Round the hall was a gallery, and under the gallery stood men in armour, looking very ghostly in the dim light.

They were only suits of armour, of course, but they were fixed so that it was impossible to tell whether there were men inside them or not.

“Mrs Kinsella, ma’am,” whispered Patsy.

“What is it, Patsy?” answered the cook.

“Let’s go back, for it’s afeared I am.”

“You come along,” answered the cook.

She knocked at a door, a voice answered “Come in”; she opened the door and, followed by Patsy, entered a pleasantly furnished room, where a stately-looking old lady sat by a great fire of holly logs which was blazing on the hearth.

This was Lady Seagrave herself, and Patsy looked at her with awe, for she was seventy-nine years of age, and as deaf as a post. People said she remembered the Battle of Waterloo, and some of the more ignorant country people said she had been at it. Patsy could almost have believed this as he stood looking at her, for she was a very fierce-looking old lady, with heavy eyebrows, a large nose, and bright, piercing eyes. She was beautifully dressed, and her fingers were covered with sparkling rings; she held an ear-trumpet to her ear.

“This is Patsy Rooney, your ladyship,” cried Mrs Kinsella through the trumpet. “I’ve washed him and brushed him to make him a bit respectable, for it’s wild in the woods he’s been runnin’ this last two years, ever since his mother died.”

“Oh, this is Patsy Rooney, is it?” said Lady Seagrave. “Hum! he looks wild enough still, but I daresay time and soap will work wonders. Is he honest, cook?”

“As honest a lad as your ladyship would find in the length and breadth of the land,” replied Mrs Kinsella.

“Have you explained to him that I wish him to enter my service in the capacity of page-boy?”

“No, your ladyship; I just cotched him and washed him and brought him up to you. His father is wishful and willin’ for him to enter your ladyship’s service.”

“That may be,” replied the old lady, “but I will have no one in my house a slave against their will. Let him advance and answer my questions personally.”

“Put your mouth to the trumpet, and when the old lady asks you a question say ‘Yes, my lady,’” whispered Mrs Kinsella.

Now Lady Seagrave was so old that she sometimes forgot things. She had quite forgotten Patsy’s name.

“What is your name?” asked her ladyship. “I have quite forgotten it. Speak up in a loud, clear voice, and don’t shuffle your feet. Now what is your name?”

“Yes, me lady,” replied Patsy. He had a mortal terror of the trumpet, he had never seen one before. He half imagined that she used it because she was so grand that it would be beneath her dignity to listen to people in the ordinary way.

“What did you say?” asked she.

Patsy imagined he had not spoken loud enough.

“Yes, me lady!” he shouted.

“What do you say?” cried her ladyship.

“Yes, me lady!” cried Patsy, nearly blubbering. “I don’t know which way to be answerin’ you, with her behint me tellin’ me to say one thing and me wantin’ to say another. Me name’s Patsy Rooney, and it’s wishin’ it’s at the divil I was!”

Fortunately Lady Seagrave could not catch the end of the sentence, but she made out the name.

“Patsy Rooney,” said she. “Well, we will call you Patsy for short. Are you a good boy, Patsy?”

“Yes, me lady,” replied he.

“And you would like to enter my service?”

“Yes, me lady.”

“Your father is alive and your mother is dead, I hear. I hope you have no evil companions in the village, for young boys left to their own resources, as you have no doubt been, often pick up most undesirable acquaintances.”

“No, me lady,” replied Patsy in a faltering voice, for he recalled to mind Con Cogan and Paddy Murphy and the promise he had made them to help them to get into the Big House and steal the jewellery of the “quality.” And here he was in the Big House, and going to be hired as page-boy—it seemed like fate.

“Do you smoke?” went on her ladyship.

“Now an’ again, mum—I mean, yes, me lady.”

“What!” cried Lady Seagrave. “Do you dare to tell me that a boy of your tender years indulges in that vile and pernicious habit?”

“Sure, it’s only the draw of a pipe I do be takin’ to aise me mind now and thin,” cried Patsy, “or when I’m out rabbitin’ in the woods alone, for they do say the whiff of a pipe keeps off the Good People.”

“The Good People?” said the old lady. “Who are they?”

“The fairies, mum—I mean, me lady.”

“Dear me,” said Lady Seagrave, “I thought no one believed in such rubbish as fairies nowadays. Well, Patsy Rooney, I will hire you for a month to see if you give satisfaction, and if you don’t you will receive a whipping and be turned away.”

“Leave him to me, your ladyship,” said Mrs Kinsella, as she led Patsy away. “I’ll answer for him giving satisfaction when I’ve belted the fairies and rubbish out of him with a strap.”

CHAPTER VII
MRS FINNEGAN’S BOY

“Mrs Kinsella, ma’am,” said Patsy, as he was led along the corridor back to the kitchen, “Mrs Kinsella, ma’am, what’s a page-boy?”

“You’re one,” replied Mrs Kinsella. “Now come along, and don’t be asking me questions, for I have no time to waste. Here’s your room, and here’s a suit belonging to William, the English page-boy that’s just been sent off home again, being caught stealing the jam; whip into the suit, and when you have it on you come into the kitchen and I’ll tell you what to do next.”

She had opened the door of a small bedroom, and there on the bed lay a page-boy’s suit, only waiting to be put on. Mrs Kinsella closed the door and left Patsy alone to make his toilet.

A new suit of clothes was an event in Patsy’s life. The suit he had on was an old suit of his father’s cut down. He could not remember ever having had a suit of clothes made for him.

The clothes on the bed had not been made for him, it is true, but they were nearly new. The jacket had two rows of buttons down the front, and the trousers had a red stripe down the seams at the side. Patsy had never seen the like of them before.

He got into them, and then he found that for all the buttons on the jacket he could not button it. Holding it together in front he came down the passage to the kitchen, and poked his head in at the half-open door.

“Mrs Kinsella, ma’am.”

“Yes, Patsy,” answered the cook; “what is it?”

“Is it fun you’re making of me?” asked Patsy.

“It’s jelly I’ll be makin’ of you with a rollingpin if you give me any of your impudence,” replied Mrs Kinsella. “What do you mean stickin’ your ugly head in at the door and askin’ me such questions? Come in with you, and give me no more of your sauce.”

“Sure, how can I come in wid me jacket unbuttoned?” asked Patsy. “It’s buttons all over I am, and not a buttonhole can I find to stick one in.”

“Come here,” cried the cook, catching him by the forelock and dragging him into the kitchen. “Do you see these?”—pointing to the hooks and eyes down the edges of the jacket: “them’s hooks and eyes. Hold up your head, now you’re fastened into your jacket, and off you go to the plate pantry and help Mr James, the butler, to clean his silver; but first, before you go, run into the stable-yard and fetch me a bucket of water.”

Patsy did as he was bid. He found a tin bucket in the yard and carefully filled it at the water-tap by the stable door. When the bucket was full he seized it by the handle and was just about to carry it back to the kitchen, when who should come into the yard, with a goose swung over his shoulder, but Micky Finnegan, son of Mrs Finnegan, the woman who had the green-grocer’s shop at Castle Knock.

Micky was an old enemy of Patsy’s. He was a long-legged boy—in fact he looked all legs and arms—a huge mouth and a squint were the next most noticeable things about him. He was not good to look at, in fact he was good for nothing except bullying boys smaller than himself, and sometimes going on an errand for his mother.

The newcomer when he beheld Patsy in his new attire stood stockstill, stared, and then burst into a wild yell of laughter.

Patsy’s red hair bristled up like the spines of a hedgehog, as it always did when he was angry, but he said nothing.

“Hurroo!” shouted Mrs Finnegan’s boy, when he had recovered from his simulated fit of laughter; “here’s Patsy Rooney burst out in buttons; here’s Patsy Rooney drawing water for the maids. Where’s your broom, Patsy? Where’s your dustpan and brush? Have yiz emptied the slops, Patsy, and made the beds and turned down the quilts?”

“And what’s brought you out to-day?” replied Patsy. “You’re afther your time; this isn’t the fifth of Novimber, this isn’t Guy Fawkes Day. Go back to your lumber-room, you stuffed straw imige, and wait till they takes you out and rides you on a rail.”

“Carrots!” yelled the other, who was not gifted greatly with the art of repartee; “who’ll buy carrots?”

“It’s ashamed of yourself you ought to be,” replied Patsy, in a tone of virtuous disgust.

“And why is it ashamed of myself I ought to be?” queried the unsuspecting Micky.

“For going about the country with your ould gran’mother slung over your shoulder,” replied Patsy. “You weren’t so fond of her when she was alive, seein’ you let her die of starvation and ould age, by the look of her.”

This double insult levelled at himself and the goose he was carrying took the wind out of Micky’s sails.

“Who are you talking to?” said he, shifting the goose from his left to his right shoulder, and advancing towards Patsy.

“The son of the ould jackass that grazes on the common, I b’lieve,” replied Patsy, raising his bucket; “though ’tis well known all over the villige he disowns you.”

“Do you see this fist?” cried Micky, shaking a grimy fist in the other’s face.

“I do. Do you see the water in this bucket?”

“I do.”

“Well, taste it!” cried Patsy, flinging it in his face.

The next moment the goose, swung like a club, caught Patsy on the side of the head, nearly stunning him, and the next both boys were rolling on the flags of the yard fighting like cats.

At this moment who should enter the stable-yard but Miss Kiligrew, driving the governess-cart with the children, and at this moment also the kitchen door opened, and Mrs Kinsella appeared to see what was keeping Patsy so long in fetching the water.

CHAPTER VIII
THE BATTLE IN THE YARD

“Separate them!” cried the governess, reining the pony in; whilst little Lord Gawdor, forgetting everything but the fight in progress, clapped his hands, calling out alternately: “Go it, Pipe-stems—give it him, Carrots!” as Patsy or his long antagonist came upwards in the fray. Doris felt frightened, but interested; as for Selina, she was in the bottom of the cart and was fast asleep covered with rugs.

“Separate them!” cried Miss Kiligrew to the cook; “don’t stand there staring—separate them.”

“Faith, it’s easy to say separate them,” answered the cook, highly incensed at Miss Kiligrew’s dictatorial manner. “Separate them yourself.”

Scarcely had she spoken when Patsy by a supreme effort got Micky under, and kneeling on his long arms began to screw his knuckles against the jaws of his victim. The bully had often done the same to smaller boys, but now that the torture was applied to himself he did not like it in the least.

“Who’s the son of the ould dunkey that grazes on the common? Who’s the son of the ould dunkey that grazes on the common?” cried Patsy. “Answer up quick, or I’ll screw you worse. Who’s the son of the ould dunkey that grazes on the common?”

“I am!” screamed Micky, unable to endure the agony. “Let me up—you’re murthering me.”

“Who’s ashamed of his son?” cried Patsy, continuing the torture, and delighted to think that little Lord Gawdor and Miss Doris and the governess were there to listen to it all. “Who’s ashamed of his son?”

“The ould dunkey is!” shrieked Micky. “It’s I that’ll be murthering you some dark night for this.”

“Name the biggest thief in the country,” continued Patsy, undismayed by the other’s threats; “out with his name before the ladies and the gintleman.”

“Micky Finnegan!” roared Micky. “Mrs Kinsella, ma’am, pull him off me!”

“Lave him be, Patsy,” cried Mrs Kinsella, who was enjoying the fun as much as little Lord Gawdor.

“I will in a minit, when I gets his family tree out of him,” replied Patsy. “Answer up, Micky Finnegan—who was your gran’mother?”

“The ould goose,” blubbered Micky, who was now in tears.

“Was she always good to you?”

“She were.”

“Ain’t you ’shamed of yourself for cartin’ her about on your shoulder to sell her when she was dead of ould age and starvation?”

“I am.”

“Did she tell you before she died you weren’t fit to black the boots of Patsy Rooney?”

“She did.”